NBS SPECIAL PUBLICATION 610

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE / National Bureau of Standards

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PUBLICATIONS
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Telecommunication Technologies, Networking aTI! ''J' and Libraries , , ^^'^^^ —'

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no. U/o

Proceedings of a Conference on Telecommunication

Technologies, Networking and Libraries,

Held at the National Bureau of Standards,

Gaithersburg, MD, June 3, 1977

Edited by:

Nancy H. Knight

10608 Fiesta Road

Fairfax, VA 22032

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, Malcolm Baldrige, Secretary

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS, Ernest Ambler, Director

Issued December 1981
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 81-600069

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS SPECIAL PUBLICATION 610

Nat. Bur. Stand. (U.S.), Spec. Publ.610 , 90 pages (Dec 1981)

CODEN: XNBSAV

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON: 1981

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D C 20402

Price $4.75

(Add 25 percent for other than U.S. mailing)
Introduction

On June 3, 1977, the National Bureau of Standards Library and

Information Services Division sponsored a one-day Conference on Telecommunication Technologies, Networking, and Libraries. The purpose of

the Conference was to provide an overview of some of the major telecommunication developments likely to impact libraries and information

centers in the near future.

The idea for the Conference grew out of a series of discussions

among librarians and information scientists who became interested in the

use of satellites for transmitting library information and for training

of library staff and users. They were concerned about the problems

facing libraries and information centers: increased operating costs,

budgets eroded by inflation, storage and shelving space decreased by

the information explosion, the need to retrieve information faster than

ever, and the need to train staff and keep abreast of new technologies.

They felt telecommunication technologies and techniques and the emerging

regional and national networks offered promise of relief from some of

these problems.

Experts from many areas of the telecommunications field addressed

the Conference. Edited versions of their presentations are included in

these Proceedings. It should be noted that the presentations were delivered in an informal, workshop atmosphere, and therefore are not

intended to be definitive papers.

Also included in these Proceedings is a paper, entitled "Videodiscs

A Fast Retrieval, Mass Storage Media for Libraries." Although it was

not delivered at the Conference, it is included at the request of many

of the Conference attendees.

For the convenience of the reader a Glossary of terms has been

compiled and precedes the text of the papers. Terms defined in the

Glossary are underlined the first time they appear in the text.

Patricia Wilson Berger

Chief, Library and Information

Services Division

National Bureau of Standards

September 1981

iii
Abstract

The conference provided an overview of current and developing

technologies for digital transmission of image data that are likely to

have an impact on the operations of libraries and information centers

or provide support for information networking. Technologies reviewed

include slow-scan television, teleconferencing, satellite telecommunications, telefacsimile, microimage transmission, holography, and videodisc. Other papers discuss technology and standards development for

computer network interconnection through hardware and software, particularly packet-switched networks; computer network protocols for library

and information service applications; the structure of a national bibliographic telecommunications network; and the major policy issues involved

in the regulation or deregulation of the common communications carriers

i ndustry.

Key Words: computer network interconnection; computer network protocol;

digital transmission of information; electronic message transmission;

image transmission; information networks; national bibliographic network;

satellite communications; slow scan television; telecommunications

policy; teleconferencing; videodiscs

iv
Table of Contents

Introduction iii

Abstract iv

Table of Contents v

Glossary vii

Network Architecture

Ira W. Cotton 1

Competition vs. Monopoly in Telecommunications

Lawrence F. Darby 9

Competition vs. Monopoly in Telecommunications

R. B. Johnson 13

The National Bibliographic Telecommunications Network

Henriette D. Avram 17

Progress in the Development of Computer Network Protocols for Library

and Information Service Applications

John L. Little 28

Telecommunications and the Expansion of Information Services

Stuart L. Meyer 39

Uses of Teleconferencing in Crisis and Warning Situations

Thomas G. Bel den 53

Interactive Telecommunications via Satellite

Earl Henderson 61

Telecommunication R&D--Impl i cations and Support for Library Programs

Richard W. H. Lee 66

Videodiscs —A Fast Retrieval, Mass Storage Media for Libraries

Robert Warnar, Madeline Henderson, and Patricia Bergei 74

V
DISCLAIMER

Opinions expressed in non-NBS papers are those of the authors, a not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Standards. Non-NBS

authors are solely responsible for the content and quality of their

submissions.

The mention of trade names in the volume does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by the National Bureau of Standards.

vi
GLOSSARY

ASCII - (American National Standard Code for Information Interchange,

X3. 4-1968). The standard code, using a coded character set con- sisting of 7-bit coded characters (8 bits including parity check),

used for information interchange among data processing systems,

communications systems, and associated equipment. The ASCII set

consists of control characters and graphic characters.

BIT - A unit of information content. Contraction of "binary digit," a bit is the smallest unit of information in a binary system of

notation. It is the choice between two possible states, usually

designated one and zero.

BLOCK - A group of characters or digits transmitted as a unit, over which a coding procedure is usually applied for synchronization

or error control purposes. Syn: Frame, Transmission Block.

See also: PACKET.

BROADCAST - The simultaneous dissemination of information to a number

of stations.

BUFFER - (1) A routine or storage used to compensate for a difference

in rate of flow of data, or time of occurrence of events, when

transmitting data from one device to another. (2) An area of

storage that is temporarily reserved for use in performing an input/output operation, into which data is read or from which

data is written.

BUS - A circuit or path over which data or power is transmitted, usually

lines that connect locations or a single line that acts as a common connection among a number of locations.

BYTE - (1) A sequence of adjacent binary digits operated upon as a unit

and usually shorter than a computer word. (2) The representation

of a character, a common representation being 8 binary digits equal

1 byte, which equals 1 character.

CARRIER SYSTEM - A means of obtaining a number of channels over a single

path by modulating each channel on a different frequency and demodulating at the receiving point to restore the signals to their

original form.

CHARACTER - The actual or coded representation of a letter, digit, or other symbol. A character is often in the form of a spatial

arrangement of adjacent or connected strokes.

CIA - Central Intelligence Agency.

vii
CIRCUIT SWITCHING - A method of communications, where an electrical

connection between calling and called stations is established on demand for the exclusive use of the circuit until the connection

is released.

CODE - (1) A set of unambiguous symbols and rules specifying the way

in which data may be represented. Synonymous with coding scheme.

(2) In telecommunications, a system of rules and conventions

according to which the signals representing data can be formed,

transmitted, received, and processed. (3) In data processing,

to represent data or a computer program in a symbolic form that

can be accepted by a data processor. (4) To write a routine.

COMMAND - (1) A control signal. (2) Loosely, an instruction in machine

language. (3) Loosely, a mathematical or logical operator. (4) A

request from a terminal for the execution of a particular program,

called a command processor.

COMMON CARRIER - In telecommunications, a public utility company that is

recognized by an appropriate regulatory agency as having the authority

and responsibility to furnish communication services to the general

publ ic.

CONCENTRATOR - A device which connects a number of circuits which are not

all used at once to a smaller group of circuits for economical transmission. A telephone concentrator achieves the reduction with a circuit-switching mechanism. A data concentrator buffers incoming

data and retransmits it over appropriate output lines.

CRT - Cathode Ray Tube.

DATA COMMUNICATION - The interchange of data messages from one point

to another over communications channels.

DATA COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT - The equipment that provides the functions

required to establish, maintain and terminate a connection, the

signal conversion and coding required for communications between

Data Terminal Equipment and data Circuit. The DCE may or may not be

an integral part of the Data Terminal Equipment or of a computer,

e.g., a Modem. Abbr: DCE.

DCI - Director, Central Intelligence.

EBCDIC - Extended binary coded decimal interchange code.

ECHO CHECK - A method of checking the accuracy of transmission of data

in which the received data are returned to the sending end for

comparison with the original data.

GATEWAY - An interface device between two networks.

VI 11
HEADER LABEL - A file or data set label that precedes the data records

on a unit of recording media.

HEADER RECORD - A record containing common, constant, or identifying

information for a group of records that follows.

HOST COMPUTER - A computer attached to a network providing primarily

services such as computation, data base access or special programs

and programming languages.

INTERACTIVE - Pertaining to an application in which each entry elicits

a response, as in an inquiry system. An interactive system may

also be conversational, implying a continuous dialog between the user and the system.

INTERFACE - (1) A shared boundary defined by common physical interconnection characteristics, signal characteristics, and meanings of

interchanged signals. (2) A device or equipment making possible

interoperation between two systems, e.g., a hardware component

or common storage register. (3) A shared logical boundary between

two software components.

LINK - The logical association of two or more data communications stations interconnected by the same data communications circuit for

the purpose of transmitting and receiving data using prescribed

data communication control procedures.

MARC - An abbreviation for Machine Readable Cataloging.

MODE - A method of operation; for example, the binary mode; the

interpretive mode.

MODEM - Modulator-demodulator. A device that modulates and demodulates

digital signals so that they may be transmitted over an analog

transmission medium. Syn: Data Set.

MULTIPLEX - To interleave or simultaneously transmit two or more messages

on a single channel

.

MULTIPLEXER - A hardware device that allows handling of multiple signals over a single channel.

MULTIPOINT NETWORK - A configuration in which more than two terminal

installations are connected.

NBS - National Bureau of Standards.

NCLIS - National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.

NSA - National Security Agency

ix
NTAG - Network Technical Architecture Group (Library of Congress).

NODE - (1) An end point of any branch of a network, or a junction common

to two or more branches of a network. (2) Any station, terminal,

terminal installation, communications computer, or communications

computer installation in a computer network.

PACKET - A group of binary digits including data and control elements

which is switched and transmitted as a composite whole. The data

and control elements and possibly control information are arranged

in a specified format.

PACKET SWITCHING - A data transmission process, utilizing addressed

packets, whereby a channel is occupied only for the duration of

transmission of the packet. Note: In certain data communication

networks, the data may be formatted into a packet or divided and

then formatted into a number of packets (either by the data terminal

equipment or by equipment within the network) for transmission and

multiplexing purposes.

POINT-TO-POINT NETWORK - A network configuration in which a connection

is established between two, and only two, terminal installations.

PROTOCOL - A formal set of conventions governing the format and relative

timing of message exchange between two communicating processes.

SINK - (1) The point of usage of data in a network. (2) A data terminal

installation that receives and processes data from a connected

channel.

STAR NETWORK - A computer network with peripheral nodes all connected

to one or more computers at a centrally located facility.

STORE AND FORWARD - Pertaining to communications where a message is

received, stored and forwarded (as in message and packet switching).

STRING - A linear sequence of entities such as characters or physical

elements. For example, a book title is a string of alphabetic

characters.

X
Network Architecture

by

Ira W. Cotton

I'm going to talk about computer network interconnection. Fortunately, I have written a technical note on the subject--NBS Special

Publication 500-6 (see reference at end of paper). This presentation is

essentially the expurgated version of that document.

I'm going to talk about network interconnection in a fairly broad

sense. I guess you could view this as a tutorial. We'll be reviewing

some of the standards developments and taking a look at what's happening

today in a very dynamic and rapidly changing area. I work in the Computer Networking Section at the National Bureau of Standards. We take a fairly expansive view of what a network is. We consider a network to be

any system that involves both computers and communications, be it a multi-computer, long-distance network like the ARPANET or simply a single user terminal over a communications line to a time-sharing system.

The current data communications networking environment is characterized by unprecedented innovation and growth. Customer costs have

been dropping over the past few years. The pace of technological innovation has been quite rapid. There has been increased competition for

services, at least in this country, where the very specific policies of

the Federal Communications Commission have been designed to foster

additional competition for communications services. New vendors, such

as TELENET, have come into the market. Other vendors, such as PCI and

DATRAN, have entered the market and then left the market. We're dealing

with a highly competitive area, but one in which the regulators apparently are prepared to see companies fail as well as succeed.

We are now in the stage of developing a new set of standards--a new generation, if you wi 1 l--specif ical ly designed for living in an increasingly digital world. In the past, we were faced with trying to carry

digital information, computer information, over a voice telephone network which really wasn't suited for it. Now, we are seeing plant and

equipment being installed for digital communications. We are faced with

the prospect of exactly the opposite problem--of carrying digitized

speech over a network designed for computer traffic. We discovered that

a new set of standards would be more appropriate to handle this type of

system. The impact of some of the most recent developments is not fully

understood. The marketplace is still restructuring. The Congress of

the United States is reexamining the total communications policy for

this country, and there are a lot of open issues. The dust hasn't

settled on some of these changes. We're in a transitional

At the time of the Conference, Dr. Cotton was a Division Chief in the

Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology, National Bureau of

Standards. He is now a Senior Associate of Booz, Allen, and Hamilton.

1
stage. We have new services being installed and new standards being

designed. This is one of the few areas where we really are developing

the standards in advance of installation of all the equipment in the

hope that nonstandard systems won't be installed and vendors won't claim

that they've already installed systems and it's too costly to convert to

the standards. We are trying to prepare the standards in anticipation

of the requirements in order to achieve broad compatibility.

I'll survey four types of interconnections this morning. They are circuit switching to the phone system interconnecting with packet switch

networks (PSN) ; star networks --real ly host computers connected to packet

switch networks; simple terminals connected to packet switch networks;

and the interconnection of the packet switch networks themselves. We'll

focus on packet switch systems because they are the most advanced technologically, and much of what applies for the interconnections in these

areas would also apply to the simpler message switch systems. By con- sidering the most complex case we'll have considered the simpler cases

as wel 1

.

It's important to recognize that when we talk about interconnection, we're really talking about i nterfaces . An interface needs to be

described at a number of levels. We will consider each of theselevels

independently. There are physical or mechanical characteristics of an interface. There are electrical characteristics, such as the variations of signal rise times and durations--engineering kinds of con- siderations. There are logical aspects--what a particular control

lead means or what the significance of control characters are when

they are passed across the interface. And finally there are procedural specif ications--a set of control leads or a number of control

characters. If the logical aspects of the interface are viewed as the syntax and the procedural specifications as a form of semantics,

then we can look at that as a language. The procedural specifications

tell us how to create meaning out of the language, how to form sen- tences, how to form instruction sequences. Generally, the logical and

procedural aspects are collectively referred to as protocol .

Every interface has certain functional requirements. They all must

have some means of addressing, except in the very simplest case of a point-to-point connection where you're simply talking to whoever is at

the end of the line. In general, we are dealing with shared commun- ications facilities and there has to be a way to identify the recipient

of a particular message. We need to provide for signal ing--some way of

distinguishing control information from data. There are a variety of

in-band and out-of-band techniques for doing that. We need to provide

for flow control. Flow control refers to mechanisms for controlling the

rate of data exchange between two points to prevent overload. Since we are dealing with communications facilities with finite capacities, there

is only a limited amount of bandwidth available; there is only a limited

amount of buffer space available. Yet we're dealing with signal

generators —terminals and host computers--which might, if uncontrolled,

put more data into the communications system than it has capacity to

handle. That would result in data being lost, or perhaps congestion in

2
the communications system itself, resulting in intolerable delays. So we need a means of throttling the input from the various data sources.

We also need flow control for systems where speed conversion is provided. We may have a high speed terminal trying to exchange data with a low speed terminal; we need a means of throttling the input from the

high speed terminal so that the low speed terminal isn't saturated. We

certainly need a means of error control, since we haven't devised perfect communication systems that are error free. We need a way of detecting errors and we need a way of recovering from errors. In most data

communication systems, we recover by simply retransmitting the data that was discovered to be in error. But error control is much more complicated than simply detecting errors and retransmitting them. We need a way of detecting duplicates. For example, in store and forward systems

a message might be delayed in transit so that we think it's been lost;

but when we transmit it a second time, two messages arrive. We need a way to recover from catastrophic errors, from 1 i nk failures. This is

perhaps the area least well addressed in system design and in the design

of protocols. It is very difficult to prove that a scheme satisfies all

of the possible error conditions and is robust enough to recover. You

know--we think we have a pretty good design and we implement it, and

discover that it works great 99 out of 100 times and on the 100th time,

something occurs that we didn't anticipate or on the 1000th time or on the 10,000th time. When you have systems that are shared by many

hundreds of users and that are used day in and day out at very high data

rates, even with a very low incidence of error you very rapidly experience all the possible error conditions. Typically, we are constantly

fixing these problems in the field rather than testing them in the

laboratory beforehand so that we know they are going to be handled

properly.

The first type of interconnection is connection of the phone

system-- the switched voice telephone network--wi th packet networks.

What I really want to point out here is that the voice network is still

going to be used for various aspects of a packet switched system. It's

going to be used for access to the switching nodes so that a user in a library or in an office with a terminal is typically going to gain access to the packet network using a modem, by dialing the phone number

of the switch, and having the data carried in analog form over the

telephone system to the switch. I don't see this being replaced for

many, many years. We are very unlikely to have wide enough availability

of digital service to change this situation. So if you have a terminal

and you expect to be using a packet network, you can expect to be dialing it up for the foreseeable future.

Now the packet networks that are in existence today, by and large,

still use internode lines provided by the telephone system--analog lines

with modems and so forth. However, as wide-band digital service becomes

available between major population centers, we can expect to see the

trunk lines between the switching centers increasingly changed from

analog circuits to digital circuits, and we'll perhaps see the satellite

links used as well within the networks. These types of lines are more efficient, less error-prone, and offer many advantages to the packet

3
carriers. The last point there--the question of integrated data

networks-- is raised to indicate that the possibility exists for engineering systems that provide integrated or hybrid data networks capable

of efficiently transporting both voice and message traffic.

Another approach is to engineer a special host interface--special

in the sense that it's optimized for the characteristic of each type of

host computer . It would be a channel interface of some kind, a very

high-speed interface that is compatible with the architecture of the

particular host computer. So essentially we need a new design for each

type of host computer, which will take full advantage of the network

capabilities, integrated into the design of the host operating systems.

We're talking about writing new drivers and new control modules for the

host. We're talking about a new access method for those of you familiar

with that terminology, or a new symbiant, for those of you who live in

the Univac world, or a multiplexing discipline. The problem is that the

mainframe manufacturers haven't shown much interest in participating in

these designs or in supporting the software after it has been written.

This was the approach that was taken by the ARPA Network where the price

of admission was engineering a host interface. But most of the costs were underwritten by ARPA and most of the work was done by graduate

students looking for degree work. That's cheap labor and someone else

is paying for it anyway, but it still caused all kinds of problems. So

it's probably the worst of all worlds, especially when you consider the

possibility of a standard type host interface based on a communications

interface rather than a channel interface. An alternative would be to

take existing standards at other levels and build up a common interface

to packet networks which would appear identical at the network and to

each of the hosts. There is some additional software development re- quired to support the new control level that is required--we' 1 1 talk

about that level in just a minute--but it's not as great as engineering

an entirely new interface. It's standard and, hopefully, will be widely

implemented and widely supported by the manufacturers and, in addition,

it's especially engineered to take advantage of all the capabilities of

the network.

This approach appears to offer the best long term solution, and

consequently led to the development of the widely publicized X.25 standard which was recently adopted by the CCITT, the Consultative Committee

on International Telegraphy and Telephony. This is an international

organization, which is part of the International Telecommunications

Union. The United States belongs to it by treaty. In most parts of the

world, the recommendations that this organization adopts are precisely

what the carrier organizations provide, since the carrier organizations

in most parts of the world are government monopolies. You find coun- tries being quite rigid about not offering a service if the CCITT hasn't

standardized it. On the other hand, they try very hard to offer all the

features that the CCITT does adopt. In this country, adoption of CCITT

standards is much more voluntary, but those carriers that are considering interconnecting with international organizations certainly try very

hard to adopt the standards.

4
Recommendation X.25 is an international standard interface to

connect host computers to public packet switching networks. It is a multilevel interface based on other standards which have already been

adopted, supporting a service called "virtual circuit" service, which is

essentially intended to replace private circuit switch networks. What a host had in the past was a means of dialing a connection to a distant

location and then having that connection remain in effect for the duration of the conversation. That's the kind of service that is trying to

be provided here. There is a call establishment phase where you would

go through the logical equivalent of setting up a call, then you go into

a data transfer phase, and pump data into the packet network. The

packet network assumes total responsibility for internal processing

capabilities. What we are talking about here are teletypes and

teletype-compatible terminals which don't have any internal processing

capabilities. You strike a key and a character is sent immediately.

There's no internal buffering, and there's no internal formatting.

These terminals place fairly heavy support demands on any network that

wants to let them connect directly to the network.

Some networks have taken the approach that only intelligent devices

are going to be connected to the swi tches--The MERIT Network in

Michigan, for example. If a simple terminal wants to access a remote

host, it first has to go through its local host and make subroutine

calls on processes which actually communicate through the network. It

reduces the requirements on the network, but users pay double. You pay

a fee to the local computer and you pay a fee to the remote computer, so it's a much more expensive approach for the users.

Therefore, networks have generally taken the approach that there's

a market out there to support simple terminals directly, and they're

going to provide those facilities in the network. What it really means

is providing the equivalent of a small host computer right inside the

switch which provides the support requirements to the terminals and acts

as a surrogate host for them in communicating through the network. One

of the things we must provide for simple terminals is a means of buffer- ing , particularly for speed conversion. We may have a computer system

transmitting into the network in burst mode at a higher data rate than

the terminal itself operates, which might be limited to 10, 15, or

30 characters per second or slightly higher, but not much higher.

This means we have a low speed device connected to a high speed network; we need buffering and flow, control so as not to lose data from the

terminal and not to overload the terminal on output. Another thing we need is a way of permitting the terminal to signal. What can you do

from a simple terminal? All you can do is type keys. So, all the

signaling must be done in character sequences typed by the operator. We

must set up a language for terminal operators to express their requirements, to indicate the destination they wish to be connected to in order

to recover from error conditions, and to indicate any other services

they might like to access. Additional services that might be provided

could include code conversion, for example. There are at least two

major families of terminals, the ASCII family and the IBM EBCDIC family

which uses an 8-bit code. It's entirely possible for a network to

5
provide a code translation facility between those kinds of terminals to

allow them to interwork. That can be a very valuable service, although

it does require resources in the network to provide it. We refer to the

realization of these functions in the network as a packet assembler/

disassembler since its function is to accept strings of individual

characters from simple terminals and assemble them into packets which

are sent through the network. One way to reduce communications costs is

to try to fill these packets as heavily as possible. So, rather than

strike a key and send a single character as a packet, we devise control

strategies where we type in an entire line and only transmit a packet

when a carriage return is struck, for example.

One alternative for providing this pad or packet assembler/disassembler function is to use the host computer as I indicated. Another is

to use an intelligent concentrator , essentially a minicomputer, which is

connected to the network and has all the capabilities of a host

computer, but doesn't necessarily have to be provided by the carrier

itself. A third party could go into the business of providing terminal

support. In this case, the third party would buy a minicomputer,

connect to the packet network, and advertise to customers in its geographic area that by making a local call to them, customers can gain access to the network. Carrier organizations could also take this

approach. Finally, we could expand the switch itself. This approach was taken by the ARPA Network. The TIP, or terminal interface message

processor, is an IMP, or interface message processor, that was expanded

by adding a terminal mul tipl exer and additional software to pretend to

be a host computer. Thus, we can expand the switch and permit terminals

to dial directly to it.

The approach taken within the CCITT is to define the service characteristics of the packet assembler/disassembler. There are two sets of

standards. On one side is a character mode standard that describes how

simple terminals talk to this pad service. It is worded in terms of

ASCII character strings and there is a command response repertoire that

lets users express their desires. On the other side, there are additional packet formats, since there are parameter setting controls and so forth that have to be provided. This looks very much like a special

kind of fourth level protocol to permit host computers to control the

actions of the terminal. For example, one of the facilities that was built into the provisional standard at this level permits a host

computer to shut off echoing so that a terminal can log on to a host and

type in a string that says it wants to gain access; the host computer

echoes back, please enter your password, and then shuts off echoing so that the password doesn't get displayed or typed on the user terminal;

then it can turn echoing back on again. We need a way for commands of

that type to be conveyed and the way they are conveyed is with new packets. A recommendation for the two parts of this approach was provisionally adopted by the CCITT a month or so ago; it will be

implemented by a number of networks worldwide and, ultimately, I'm sure,

be finally adopted.

6
The final area that we'll talk about is the interconnection of

networks. Fifty or 75 years ago, we were faced with a situation where

people were implementing telephone networks worldwide in very non- standard ways and it was virtually impossible to interconnect. It was difficult enough to make long-distance calls in this country with the

hundreds of different independent telephone companies, each with its own

internal signaling scheme and so forth, and international calls were extremely difficult to place. That situation was the motivation for

much of the work of the CCITT. Well, really, international telegraphy

was the original motivation and the same principles were applied to

telephony. The situation a couple of years ago for data communications

was every bit as bad as it was in telephony 50 or 75 years ago. There were just no standards and no way of placing international data calls,

or at least of having the data understood. I think that if anyone were

going to award the standard of the year award for 1976, it would have to

go to X.25, since it's really going to lead to true international com- patibility and full worldwide interconnection between the national

packet carriers. We already have interconnection between Canada and the

United States. We will shortly, if we don't yet, have interconnection

between the United States and Britain, and the United States and France.

Within a very few years, all of the major industrialized nations are going to have national public data networks with gateways to the data

networks in other countries. Multinational corporations and international services will be routinely using these networks for international services. Just as there were a variety of ways of connecting

host computers to packet networks, there are a variety of ways of interconnecting the packet networks themselves through a common host, a common switching node, or a device sitting between them--an internode

device or a set of standards between the switching nodes.

The first two methods are very unlikely to be accepted. They have

been used in various research projects. I know of a number of cases where networks have been interconnected through a common host without

anyone knowing about it. I believe that TYMNET and ARPANET were con- nected through a common host on the West Coast. TELENET and ARPANET

were connected through hosts. Most people tried to keep it quiet for

various regulatory reasons. Common switching nodes are fairly unlikely.

There are control problems. Who controls the nodes? Which network

controls the switching node? Thus, the approach that is being taken is a compatible gateway where you set up a set of interface packets that

networks use to exchange data internationally. There might be a new fourth level protocol for things like accounting, control messages

between networks, and so forth. We don't yet have a comprehensive

recommendation in this area, but work is proceeding quite actively and,

as I indicated before, the packet networks are going ahead with interconnection and I'm sure that a common standard will result shortly.

What can we conclude? First of all, there is a very high demand

for all types of interconnections. There is a demand for service.

There is a demand for diversity of service. There is a demand for

universality of service. If there is a service available, customers

7
don't want to be told that they can't gain access to it because they

don't happen to live in the right place or because there is no way to access that service through the network to which they are currently

connected. I work for the National Bureau of Standards. I have to

believe that standards are the only workable approach to solving this

kind of problem. As I indicated earlier, I don't think we're too late

in this area—people cannot claim that they've made too large an investment in nonstandard implementations--and I don't think we're too early

either. Nor do I think we're stifling innovation. I think this is a model area for demonstrating the introduction of standards at precisely

the right timeframe, and we're making good progress toward that goal.

There are a lot of people taking potshots at some of the standards that

have been developed, and rightly so. They were developed somewhat

hurriedly. There is some polishing that remains to be done, but I think

that the basic structure is fundamentally sound. We have made significant progress and, as I indicated, within the next few years there

will be more. Right now you can pick up a telephone in Washington, and

you don't have to go through an operator to dial much of Western Europe.

We have direct dialing to many parts of the world. You know--great,

your kid can pick up the phone and dial London--it's not a total blessing, but I think the same kind of very easy and convenient access to

services abroad and from overseas to services in this country will be

routine. You won't even think about it. We are going to have very high

quality, widely available standard services on an international basis,

and I think that's a real triumph for the people who have been working

in this area.

Reference : Cotton, Ira W. Computer Network Interconnection : Problems

and Prospects . Washington, U.S. National Bureau of Standards; for sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print.

Off., 1977. (NBS Special Publication 500-6)

8
Competition vs. Monopoly in Telecommunications

by

Lawrence F. Darby

Brian Johnson, the representative from AT&T, and I have agreed to

focus on some of the more provocative issues. The topic. Competition

vs. Monopoly in Telecommunications, is extremely broad. Even a modest

discussion of the most critical issues could run well into the night.

The other option, to discuss in detail only a few of the more important

issues, could take as long. For example, a single current proceeding at

the Federal Communications Commission has already attracted well over 30

respondents and generated 8000 pages of evidence, and a recent tariff

filing by AT&T in response to an FCC order comprises over 50 volumes and

about 16,000 pages. Now, having emphasized that the issues are both

broad and intricate, I will try to highlight some of the major points.

I think it is very important to place the competition vs. monopoly

issue in a proper historical perspective. The dominant theme in this

perspective is the rapidity of technological change affecting the production and use of communications and communications-related services.

Earlier this morning we heard a presentation using technical terms many,

or most, of which simply did not exist 10 to 15 years ago; nor did the

facilities, processes, or services to which the terms apply.

Communications networks take their form from several building

blocks; and these blocks, almost without exception, are being dramatically improved, whether measured in terms of capacity, cost, or quality parameters. Large-scale integrated circuits, using wafered

silicon chips, have literally revolutionized the design of computers,

switches, and assorted terminal devices. Companion changes in transmission media--high capacity coaxial cable, microwave, satellites, and

optical fibers —will continue to provide more and more bandwidth for

quickly moving large quantities of digitized information in the form of

voice, record, data, or video services. The developments have been

compared in scope, importance, and probable impact to those commonly

associated with the industrial revolution.

Technological change generally must be incorporated into the eco- nomic system and this, of course, puts pressure on the status quo. Entrepreneurs recognize new opportunities and consumers demand new, improved, and more diversified services. New technologies tend to disturb

markets by opening new opportunities on both sides of the market; this

is precisely what has happened and will continue to happen in the com- munications industry. Technological disturbance of the roughly stable

equilibrium in communications and related markets has and will continue

to force institutions, private and public, to adjust and adapt. That,

Dr. Darby is a consultant to the Common Carrier Bureau, Federal Communications Commission.

9
simply and in short, is the source of the controversy over monopoly and

competition in telecommunications.

The public institution with which I am associated, and thus with

which I am most familiar, is the Federal Communications Commission. The

FCC is charged by the Communications Act of 1934 with regulating commu- nications common carriers. The Commission has begun to adapt to the new technological realities and I should say a few words about how it has

done so.

One of the first applications by a non- common carrier to use one of

the "new" technologies--microwave transmi ssion--was made by a private

corporation, which wished to provide its own transmission capacity. The

applicant had no plans to market services; rather, it applied merely to

build microwave links for its own private uses. The Commission perceived no major threat to the public interest and granted the applicant

the necessary radio frequencies in its now famous (or notorious, depending on your point of view) "above 90 megahertz" decision. Numerous

similar applications came quickly thereafter. Subsequently, MCI applied

for frequencies for the purpose of offering itself as a carrier for

hire. The application was granted on grounds that MCI would be able to

provide specialized services which were not available from the established carriers. Then came the specialized common carrier decision

which elaborated on the MCI decision and the DOMSAT (Domestic Satellite)

decision which extended the specialized common carrier decision to

include satellites and enunciated an open skies policy, that is, the

skies would not be reserved for established carriers. Finally, in the

"resale and shared-use" decision, the Commission permitted individuals

or groups to buy circuits from established carriers and to use them

jointly or to resell them after adding value to them in some form or another. The thrust of these decisions has been to open up for competition transmission markets which heretofore had been reserved for

regulated monopolies.

On the terminal question, the Commission entertained first a petition from an individual who wanted to put a cup-like device on the

telephone to shield his voice from outside noise, as well as to provide

some privacy. Established carriers objected because, they said, the

device is an "alien" attachment. They also raised some questions of

potential harm to the network. The Commission allowed the device and

followed up with the "Carterfone" decision some years later, which

further opened the national switch network for interconnection. My

interpretation of the Commission's basic presumption in all these

decisions is that competition will be allowed in both the provision of

private lines and the provision of terminal equipment if it is privately

beneficial —if somebody benefits—and if it is not publicly detrimental.

That particular language was used by the Court, and I think it is fair

to say that the concept aptly characterizes the FCC philosophy concerning competition vs. monopoly.

Thus, the Commission has opened two limited markets for competition. This was not welcomed by AT&T nor its 1600 independent telco

10
partners. Indeed, they have objected procedurally at the Commission and

Brian Johnson will no doubt give you the reasons why. In general,

though, the Commission has been upheld by the courts. The first principal carrier legislative response was the introduction of the Home

Telephone Act. That act was not specifically sponsored by the carriers,

but it was carrier-supported. Basically, it said, among other things,

that there should be no competition unless the FCC could demonstrate

that it would not have an adverse impact on exchange rates--or to put it

another way—on intrastate and exchange services. The carriers' most

recent response is, of course, the so-called "Bell Bill." It has fairly

broad-based support, not just from AT&T, but from 1600 independent telephone companies and some State regulators. Nevertheless, it states

generally AT&T's position and is therefore known as the "Bell Bill."

The bill would establish a presumption in favor of monopoly. It would

have Congress find that the intention of Congress in 1934 was to grant a monopoly. The "Bell Bill" would vest jurisdiction over interconnection

with the states, reversing what the courts have determined as the proper

jurisdiction of the FCC. The impact would probably be to reduce competition substantially, at least in a national sense, because regulatory

responsibility would be fragmented. I was thinking, while Ira Cotton

was talking about standards, that one of the possible prospects of such

fragmentation would be 50 different interconnect standards. I say a possibility; I think it is not likely. In time, the wishes of the

larger states, California, New York, and others, might force a national

standard for interconnect. The "Bell Bill" would adopt a pricing mechanism which the FCC believes to be inherently anticompetitive; that is,

it would establish long-run incremental cost (LRIC) as the standard for

competitive rates. The bill would allow exceptionally low rates to

"meet" competition. My own view is that not very much competition would

survive under that standard, but it all depends on what kind of LRIC

standard was ultimately adopted. Finally, the bill would place the

burden of proof on any would-be competitor to show that proposed ser- vices are not being offered by established carriers, or are beyond the

ability of established carriers to offer in the future. It is accurate

to say that if the bill were passed, the small amount of competition we currently have would be eliminated. Certainly, it would foreclose any

new competitive entry.

What is the impact of competition? As Brian Johnson will probably

make clear, there are two schools of thought--the one held by the FCC

and others and the one held by the carriers. The FCC has looked at the

arguments that interconnection is going to cause technical harm to the

national network. The Commission has determined that this need not

necessarily result from competition in the terminal equipment markets

given a proper program of registration. Has there been any economic

harm? The Commission has initiated Docket No. 20003, which inquires

into the potential for economic harm posed by competition. That docket

has attracted 30 respondents and generated a record of approximately

8000 pages. The Commission's first report noted that there appeared to

be no adverse impact of competition to date and that there was no evidence of a substantial impact in the future. Again, AT&T disagrees.

11
The FCC is now looking specifically at the possible impact of competition on rural subscribers. One of the main reasons the Consumer

Communications Reform Act, the "Bell Bill," received such generous

support last year was because many Congressmen come from rural areas;

whether the facts support it or not, many owners of small telephone

companies who serve those areas believe that competition will force

increased rates through fairly complicated mechanisms called jurisdictional separations and toll settlements. In response to this concern, the FCC has issued a notice of inquiry and formed a joint board

with the state regulatory agencies to determine if, in fact, competition

will be economically harmful to some of these carriers and their subscribers. We are trying to determine which carriers might be hurt and

are exploring means for offsetting that harm.

That, in a nutshell, is some of the background and issues raised by

competition in telecommunications. The issues are complex, controversial, and important. They defy a simple summary.

12
Competition vs. Monopoly in Telecommunications

by

R. B. Johnson

Larry and I are not as far apart as you might think. Certainly, I would not quarrel with anything he said about the fact that the issues

are complex, and that we could easily stay here and talk well into

tomorrow about them before we even got to questions and answers. One of

the difficulties in doing this kind of thing is that you sit there and

you listen to the other people talk and you hear hundreds and hundreds

of things that you wish you could respond to and time just doesn't allow

it. So as Larry did, I'm going to try and keep my remarks brief so that

we will have some time left to deal specifically with those issues which

interest you, rather than having us stand up here and try to determine

what we think you are interested in.

Larry mentioned the words that have become quite famous, out of the

court, having to do with privately beneficial and not publicly detrimental. I think that it's fair to say, and I think he would probably

agree with me, that the issue is not monopoly vs. competition, but is

really more one of what is publicly detrimental and what is not publicly

detrimental. As I go through the things that I am going to say this

morning, I think you'll see that our concerns have to do with things

which may be publicly detrimental. We have done a lot of speaking

before a lot of different organizations on this kind of thing, and the

main reason we do it is because we are very interested in generating a national dialogue to bring these issues out before the public for examination. We're very much concerned that the FCC has made and is making

decisions, of whose impact most people are completely unaware. Naturally, we have our own views of what constitutes the public interest

and we put those forward. Not surprisingly, there are others who have

views that are different from ours. Our hope is that when you hear all

points of view, you will agree that ours is the one that most closely

represents your own way of thinking. But more important than whether or not you agree with us, we think that it's very important that you understand the issues and that your views, whatever they may be, are based on facts. That is primarily why we come out and do these debates or panel

discussions or whatever you would like to call them.

I think by far the single biggest issue can be summed up by the

phrase--who gets and who pays. That's something that Larry was alluding

to before. He mentioned to you that there are a large number of costs

in the telephone industry which cannot be allocated to a specific ser- vice because they are involved with the provision of more than one

service. The most commonly used example is the telephone set and the

pair of wires that connects that set to the local central office. Now,

that hardware is used to make local telephone calls. It's also used to

Mr. Johnson is Manager of Public Affairs for the American Telephone and

Telegraph Company.

13
make long distance calls. The costs associated with that telephone set

and that pair of wires exist even if the subscriber who uses them makes

no calls at all. Given that kind of environment, how does one determine

how much of the cost associated with that telephone set and that pair of

wires should be covered by revenues from local service and how much

should be covered by toll service. Historically, for a lot of reasons associated with politics, economics, and technology, a rate structure

has evolved which over the past decades has assigned a larger portion of

those costs to toll services or long distance service or message telephone service or whatever you want to call it--the basic long distance

telephone service. The purpose for doing that was basically to allow

regulators and telephone companies to keep the rates for local residential service low, and therefore, widely affordable to contribute to

what Larry referred to as universal service so that everyone who wanted

a telephone could have a telephone. That outcome, that rate structure

is really not too surprising. That is basically the objective that

Congress articulated in the front end of the Communications Act of

1934, and we believe that that's how we got the rate structure that we have today. Now this particular rate structure has been pretty suc- cessful in holding telephone rates low for local residential service,

but it has one very difficult point to it; that that rate structure

makes long distance telephone service very vulnerable to competition.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. If a businessman

who has his business in New York makes a large number of calls to only

two cities--let' s say Chicago and St. Louis, and let's say that he runs

up maybe $100 phone bills month after month after month in the process

of conducting his business. He may opt for a specialized private line

service between these cities at a reduced cost. Here is where a so- called specialized service and long distance telephone service are very

clearly in competition for the same customer dollars. That's a rea- sonably simple example, but today in the business world, there are similar kinds of dislocations which are taking place every day which

demonstrate that same principle. So when people tell you that in the

field of intercity communications, competition has been limited to a very narrow portion of the market, please view that statement with some skepticism.

Now that's the basic problem. There are just a ton of other is- sues. Larry touched on quite a few of them having to do with technical

protection of the network and so forth and so on. Rather than get into

those, what I'd like to do in the next few minutes is lay out for you

what I think should be the national objectives used in setting national

policy for telecommunications.

I think the first objective should be availability. By this, I mean that telecommunications services, to meet a wide variety of needs,

should be obtainable by users in any reasonable geographic area at

affordable rates. Now there is a lot to that. There are basically

three components to what I just called availability. One is affordable

rates--we've already talked about that. The next js geographic availability. That's the thing that Larry mentioned. Who serves the guy on the bottom of the Grand Canyon or on the upper peninsula of Michigan,

14
and can he be served at rates that he can afford to pay? If the carrier

provides service at a rate that loses money, how is he compensated for

that? The last component that I talked about was variety. There is no question that technology is bringing forth greater and greater demands

for various applications, especially in the data field, and this is the area where there is room for competition. There is room for the packet

switching networks that Ira was talking about this morning. And na- tional policy should foster that kind of thing.

The second national objective should be quality. Again, quality is

multifacetted. First of all, services should be adequate for their

intended purpose. In other words, they should perform properly. As I'm sure you have heard, the National Telecommunications Network is a con- glomeration of millions of interrelated parts. With us, compatibility

is a constant concern among all of these parts. We have found and we believe that the principles of systems engineering are imperative to the

proper functioning of a national network. We think that that's the only

way that we can continue to get satisfactory performance out of that

network. If quality means performance, it must also mean reliabilityreliability in that you can get a new service installed in a reasonable

amount of time when you want it; reliability in getting outages re- paired quickly. Here again, we think that reliability is based on systems concepts. Anyone who has suffered through the resolution of the

computer systems problems involving multiple suppliers can appreciate

our concerns over increased restoration times in a similar environment

for communications.

Now, having said all that, you're probably wondering if there is

anything that we see in the telecommunications area that is suitable for

competition. That's essentially the question that Senator Harrison

Schmitt of New Mexico asked John DeButts, AT&T Chairman, in his recent

appearance before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications. Mr.

DeButts responded just recently in a letter to Senator Schmitt and to

the subcommittee in which he delineated the areas that he thought were appropriate for regulated monopolies and the areas that he thought were candidates for competition.

He started out by saying that those things that conform to any one of three criteria should be provided on a regulated monopoly basis. The

first criteria applies to areas which exhibit significant economies of

scale and scope. In other words, any place where you can demonstrate

that there are clearly natural monopoly tendencies which have a significant impact on the efficiency and cost of the provision of whatever it

is we're talking about in the market. The second was areas in which

competition would undermine an industry structure which exists for the

purpose of achieving or maintaining a Congressional ly established na- tional objective. The third was areas in which the potential hazards to

the National Telecommunications System under competition so outweigh the

potential advantage or the potential benefits that the risk is simply

not worth taking. He then proceeded to identify those areas which, in

his opinion, would become regulated monopoly areas under such a definition. There were four of them. The first was the provision of local

15
exchange service, including a single carrier-provided telephone instrument. The second was the provision of virtually all transmission

facilities. The third was the provision of message telephone service

(MTS) or ordinary long distance service. And the fourth was the provision of any service which is sufficiently cross-elastic with long

distance service to threaten its ability to contribute to keeping local

rates low.

Finally, he delineated the remaining areas which, with adequate

safeguards, he felt could be considered candidates for competition.

Again, there are four. The first was the provision of transmission

facilities which do not duplicate the infrastructure facilities either

by virtue of not being functionally interchangeable with or not serving

the same geographical locations as those facilities. The second was the

provision of services which are unique and not substitutable for or cross-elastic with MTS or local exchange service. He recognized that a reliable means had to be developed to test new services to determine

what their relationship is with MTS and local service. The third area

that he felt was a candidate for competition was the manufacture and

supply of telecommunications equipment--that equipment sold to telephone

companies to be used in the providing of telephone service. The fourth area that he said he thought was a candidate for competition was all

terminal equipment with the exception of a single carrier-provided

telephone associated with local telephone service. However, he urged at

the same time that adequate safeguards be provided to insure that the

public network is not harmed through interconnection and pointed out

that AT&T and the rest of the telephone industry continues to disagree

with the adequacy of the FCC Registration Program to accomplish that

objective.

Now, there in a nutshell, along with what Larry has told you, is

the question of competition vs. regulation in telecommunications. I have tried to summarize for you in a brief period of time, what I think

is important. I've tried to give you my ideas of what I think would be

appropriate objectives for Congress to use in their coming activities in

deciding the future of telecommunications in this country, and I hope

you agree with me. But, as I said before, more important than that, I hope that the resolution of these issues will not be reached in the

absence of your attention and your concern.

16
The National Bibliographic Telecommunications Network

by

Henriette D. Avram

A better title for my presentation might have been, "Networking

Activities." I, in common with most of the others in this room, cannot

predict with any certainty the precise configuration of the network, the

responsibility to be assigned to various components, the locus of network management, precise network configuration or participation, sources

of funding, and several other details. However, one thing is obvious--

the network is evolving.

The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science--a

commission appointed by the President of the United States--recommended

the establishment of a National Library and Information Service Network.

The study said that the network would consist of three coordinated

parts, and I quote:

A resource system designed to provide guaranteed

access to all needed materials. A bibliographic

system designed to provide a unique authoritative

bibliographic description for each item held in

the guaranteed access, as well as the locations of

such material. A communications system designed

to provide on-line communication of bibliographic

data and requests for data and services between

the various levels of the network.

The three parts, the resources, the bibliographic and the communications systems are depicted in figure 1. You will note that the uni- verse has been called the National Library and Information Service

Network, borrowing from the commission. I am going to confine my presentation to the library bibliographic and communications components of

the universe. This limitation is a result of several events, and for

those of you who are unfamiliar with library automation activity over

the last decade, I will briefly describe to you why we are limiting our efforts at present to the library bibliographic component of the uni- verse.

It was not until the 1960s that the automation of libraries became

a matter of serious interest. There is no doubt that the Library of

Congress's MARC project, which made cataloging data available in machine

readable form, had a major impact on library automation development.

For the first time, a format for the presentation of such data was available as a distribution service of the Library of Congress (LC).

Thus, a basic ingredient for automated library systems was provided from

a central, national source. The libraries desiring to automate did not

have to start from ground zero. Although library activity accelerated

At the time of the Conference, Dr. Avram was Director, Network Development

Office, Library of Congress.

17
18
in the 1970s, we saw the creation of few new stand-alone library systems;

that is, we did not see systems being built for automating the operations

of a single institution; rather, efforts were concentrated on computerbased systems to serve the processing and public service needs of many

institutions.

During this same period of time, LC was very much involved in the

design and implementation of its own processing system, which has become

known at the Core Bibliographic System, and its National Bibliographic

Service—a service designed to serve the needs of the nation's libraries

by providing products from data generated in LC as well as from data

input from outside national and international sources. Networking

activities emerged as a dominant trend about this same time. LC, as part of its National Bibliographic Service, has initiated several projects which are building blocks of this information network. These

permit the use of LC's bibliographic data by other institutions in an on-line mode. In addition, these projects involve the input of bibliographic data by other institutions, national and international, to build

a national data base. Figure 2 shows the National Bibliographic Service, the input of LC records, MARC cataloging records, in-process

records, subject and name authority records, and location records.

Other institutions contribute to the building of a national serials data

base (about 14 participating institutions) and the COMARC Data Base of

book records (about 12 institutions in a batch, rather than an on-line,

mode). We look forward to the input of non-LC cataloging records in

machine readable form. In addition, we hope to build our authority

system, and we are already inputting the location reports of other

libraries. From the National Bibliographic Service, we are providing

machine readable data, printed products, microform products, and on-line

services. Figure 3 summarizes the services that are available today.

MARC covers books, serials, maps, films, subject headings, and soon,

names. From our automated system, we produce printed products, such as cards, book catalogs, the register of locations, and the LC subject

headings list. Microform products include the Register and the Subject

Headings, and we have one interactive network in operation with the

Research Libraries Group, which I will describe in more detail.

In the 1970s we began to see the formation of the bibliographic

utilities —organizations that offered computer-based services to a number of libraries. Some of these utilities include BALLOTS, the Ohio

College Library Center (OCLC), the Washington Library Network, and

others, with OCLC, of course, being by far the most advanced. Organizations acting as brokers or distributors of computer-based services

from one or more bibliographic utilities have also developed. These

service centers are of various types--mul ti state , statewide,

intrastate—serving a variety of clientele. This proliferation of

activity seemingly had no direction. It was just as though networking

was a game and anyone could play. It was this situation, plus the

question of a proper relationship among these developing systems and LC

and its national service, that prompted the library to create an office,

the Network Development Office, and also a Network Advisory group. The

Network Advisory Group, composed of senior representatives of many

19
20
21
ongoing systems, was asked to act in an advisory capacity to the Network

Development Office. The initial output of the Advisory Group was a working paper. The working paper is not a national plan, but rather

recommendations of some first steps towards coordinating the many disparate elements in the direction of an integrated system. Early in its

deliberations, the Advisory Group narrowed the scope of its paper to the

library bibliographic component of the larger network-- the National

Library and Information Service Network. We all placed equal importance

on the other components of the information community, as well as the

need for an effective resource-sharing system for all members of the

library and information community. But in an attempt to begin, only

that one component was to be addressed. This, then, takes us full

circle back to the limitation and the reason why I am talking about the

library bibliographic component.

The Network Advisory Group identified a series of tasks and divided

these tasks into three categories. The first category of tasks was as- signed to the Network Coordinating Agency. Their tasks included the

design of the technical network configuration or architecture, the determination of the role of authority files in the network, the determination of the legal and organizational structure of the library bibliographic component, and the determination of the configuration of the

national data base.

The second series of tasks were given to the operational units of

LC. In order for LC to play its role in the evolving system, it needed

to conduct a study to determine hardware and software configurations

needed to operate the National Bibliographic Service; to communicate

with outside libraries on existing or proposed bibliographic services;

to make available all appropriate internal LC bibliographic, authority,

and holdings data bases; to determine a pricing structure for these

products; to design and implement an on-line LC authority system; and to

provide the interface with the network authority system. LC has now set

a policy to make its bibliographic data bases available on-line. We are also engaged in setting a pricing structure. Additional tasks for the

LC operational units were: 1) to design a remote entry input system; we

are now doing this as part of the CONSER project; 2) to design and

implement a system to make available international MARC records--we are very much involved with the international MARC scene, but at this time,

the only MARC tapes that are available are those from Canada and this

needs to be expanded; 3) to design and implement retrieval or query

systems to provide on-line access to the bibliographic and location

records--retrieval is available but requires expansion.

The third series of tasks were specified as the responsibility of

other network organizations. Their task was to define the role of State

and multi state networks in the library bibliographic component, including goals, assumptions, objectives, functions, and tasks specific to

these network organizations.

I am going to confine my presentation to work in progress by the

Network Coordinating Agency. Since there does not exist a Network

I 22
Coordinating Agency, the Network Advisory Group recommended that the LC

Network Development Office assume this role as an interim measure. We

have done that.

What we have tried to do is to work at all times with other networkrelated organizations. This is a task of coordination. The approach

has been to keep working groups small and to the point. Figure 4 shows

the relationship of the major activities underway. The Network Development Office is being advised by the Network Advisory Group. The Network

Technical Architecture Group, which has become known as NTAG, is a result of one of the high priority recommendations of the Network Advisory Group. This group is concerned with the technical architecture of

the library bibliographic component of the system. Ira Cotton's paper

this morning was great because he provided the tutorial needed to understand what this group is trying to do. NTAG has two primary objectives.

The first is the design and implementation of the interconnection of the

bibliographic utilities: OCLC, Washington Library Network, BALLOTS,

NELINET, University of Chicago, and others. The second is the determination of the configuration of the national data base. The design and

implementation of the interconnection of the bibliographic utilities

will be the first project undertaken. NTAG has divided this project

into three subprojects, each subproject being a self-contained useful

task which builds on the prior subproject, finally leading to the accom- plishment of the principal mission of interconnecting the bibliographic

uti 1 ities.

The purpose of the interconnection of the bibliographic utilities

is to share bibliographic data. For example, if an item is cataloged on one system, the user of another system transparent to him, should be

able to retrieve the record from the remote system for use in his own

system. Likewise, by linking the bibliographic utilities, interlibrary

loans should become more effective. A user requesting an item which

cannot be found in the institution of his region could possibly locate

that item in a remote library by having his system access the location

of items in another system.

The first subproject is to link the bibliographic utilities to the

Library of Congress using current Library of Congress protocols. The reason we are using Library of Congress protocols is that standard

protocols are not yet available. This project will create a network

enabling each of the bibliographic utilities to link to the LC system.

This project is a logical extension of an existing project, the Research

Libraries Group-LC computer-to-computer link that is now being tested in an operational mode. In April of 1976, the Research Libraries Group

(RLG) and LC began a joint pilot project to establish communication

links between the RLG host computer, the New York Public Library computer, and the LC computer. For cataloging purposes, staff members of the

RLG libraries search the RLG data base residing in the New York Public

Library computer for records. If the desired record is not in that

file, the search query is transmitted to the LC computer invoking the LC

searching system. If a record is found, that record is transmitted back

23
a:O

>-<O

>-Q

I111 o I i i X

LU

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CO

(0

111 o

ILU

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CC<az

(o ocO&oO&

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24
to the New York Public Library computer in the MARC communications

format for further processing.

The second subproject will upgrade the system I just described by

the use of standard protocols, both the protocols being established at

the application level by the NCLIS-NBS Task Force on Computer Network

Protocol and the networking level standards that Ira Cotton talked

about--X.25. This will upgrade the system that exists to connect the

util ities to LC.

The third and final development will be to extend the system that

exists to provide bi-directional capability between the bibliographic

utilities to allow each system to access the bibliographic records of

all the other systems including LC.

The first project described-- the linking of the utilities to LC--is

the subject of a joint proposal now being written by seven institutions.

The proposal seeks funds to expand not only the RLG service to the other

institutions, but also to expand the service itself to a variety of ser- vices including some which will be beneficial to LC itself, as well as to the other utilities in the network. By expanding the number of participants, links will be established across a broad geographic base to

utilities serving, in some instances, a totally different kind of clientele. The trade-off between the cost of storage of bibliographic

records at many institutions versus the cost of data communications to access records on demand will be more effectively tested. The organizations that are involved in the proposal writing believe that this is

the first time that such a joint proposal has been written for a project

of national scope. This is significant in that, from the onset the

system is being built in unison, with the result that each organization

is aware of what the other one is doing. Where possible, procedures

will be shared, equipment will be rented or purchased by joint agreement, and the results, which will provide experience for the subsequent

steps, will be analyzed by the group as a whole.

During the course of its deliberations, the NTAG Group recognized

that the NCLIS-NBS Task Force was concerned with control information

protocol, i.e., protocol that will describe types of transactions,

message source, message destination. There is still a need in the

eventual network for standard message formats; for example, a standard

query text, a standard bibliographic text, a reply text, an error text.

NTAG agreed that this work could best be started by a contractor and

that a formal proposal should be submitted to the Committee for the

Coordination of National Bibliographic Control stating that a consultant

should be engaged to study existing systems and make recommendations for

standards to be used to communicate between the utilities. For those of

you who do not know what the Committee on the Coordination of National

Bibliographic Control is, let me give you a brief description. This

committee represents members of the various components of the information community: publishers, abstracting and indexing services,

libraries, information centers, and others. It was started as the

result of a conference held about three years ago to explore what could

25
be done to bring the various segments of the information community

closer together. The committee is funded by the Council on Library

Resources, the National Science Foundation, and the National Commission

on Libraries and Information Sciences. NTAG offered to act as the

monitoring agency for this work. The committee agreed to fund the

study. NTAG has written the study objectives and the task definitions;

we are presently negotiating with a consultant to perform the work.

If you study figure 4 again, you will see at the bottom the Network

Message Text Standard which again coordinates one more committee and one more project. We have talked about the Network Development Office, the

Network Advisory Group, the Network Technical Architecture Group, the

Network Message Text Standard, and the NCLIS-NBS Task Force. The Network Development Office has a member on the NCLIS-NBS Task Force and the

Network Technical Architecture Group is composed of technical people,

several of whom are on the NCLIS-NBS Task Force.

Other work in progress by NTAG includes a cost trade-off comparison

study between the value-added networks and leased lines. That study has

been completed. We have also defined the functions of the Host Front

End Processor, which would include such procedures as formatting, character conversion, the functions of the Network Front End Processor, the

standard processor, and the interface that Ira Cotton was addressing,

which includes such procedures as data transmission, management information, maintenance, and interface to the host. The Network Development

Office has also completed a project activity planning technique. We

have defined the tasks that are needed and we are slowly but surely

filling them in. We are writing the project proposal and we hope to

have that proposal ready for funding institutions by August or September. This group meets approximately once a month. The first few

meetings were funded by the Research Libraries Group as part of their

task, but the remainder of the meetings are funded by the Council on Library Resources.

The second task of the Network Technical Architecture Group is to

configure the National Data Base. When we talk about the National Data

Base, we are talking about the bibliographic data base, the authority

data base, and the location data base. We cannot talk about one without

the other. If again you will look at figure 4 you will note, off to the

right, a National Authorities Study Group. This project was started by

the Network Development Office prior to the formation of the NTAG Group.

We started out with the definition of a project--def i ne the role of the

authority file in a national network. The first proposal written was so complex that we divided it into two phases. The first phase was called

methodology--in other words, tell us how to do the second phase. The

methodology ended up not being quite a methodology, but rather has taken

us well into the configuration of the National Data Base. However, we also discovered we really were not talking about the role of the au- thority file in an evolving network. We all know the role of an authority file. The role of an authority file is to control individual

catalogs. The problem was, how do you extend that role? What are the

difficulties? We want to extend the role of the authority file to a

26
national union cataloging data base, and I do not mean for the printed

edition, I mean for a machine readable data base, that is being built

cooperati vely--that really is the problem.

A study was funded by the National Commission on Libraries and

Information Science concerning the role of an authority file in a network environment. The administrative and technical direction of the

study was under the Network Development Office and the principal investigator was Edward Buchinski of the National Library of Canada, who

probably knows more about mechanized authority files than anybody else.

We formed an evaluation team of those people who had some experience

with machine readable authority files, the National Authority Study

Group. They included representatives from the New York Public Library,

Boeing Computer Services who did the systems for the Washington Library

Network, the Library of Congress, the National Commission on Libraries

and Information Science, and also a representative from the Committee

for the Coordination of National Bibliographic Control (the committee

was also looking at the problem of authorities) to sit in as part of the

evaluation team. The project has been completed and I have the final

report. We have defined approximately 16 tasks for phase two. All of

this work will be input into the Network Technical Architecture Group

as part of its second task.

I talked about four existing groups--the Network Advisory Group,

the Network Technical Architecture Group, the NCLIS-NBS Task Force, and

the National Authority Study Group. When you work with all these

groups, you rapidly discover that you are all using different words to mean the same thing. There needs to be a glossary defining new terms.

We are having trouble communicating with each other. I have asked LC

and they have agreed to fund a glossary study. We are not attempting to

put together a complete dictionary, but rather to come up with about 100

to 150 terms, so that when the terms are used across the community, they

will mean the same thing to all of us. One member of each of these four

groups will serve as a liaison or representative of that group to the

contractor who will be doing the work. At this time, we are negotiating

with a contractor to start the effort.

In summary, the Network Advisory Group gives direction to networking efforts by assigning specific tasks to working groups. Although

each working group is a separate entity, individuals serve on more than

one group and each group is briefed on the activities of the other

groups. This approach creates an environment conducive to working

together toward the building of a system composed of existing systems

but integrated into a workable whole.

27
Progress in the Development of Computer Network Protocols

for Library and Information Service Applications

by

John L. Little

The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS)

has appointed a Task Force on Computer Network Protocol comprised of seven experts from organizations that are actively engaged in operating

computer networks serving various bibliographic and cataloging needs of

libraries around the United States, some on a national basis, and some

on a regional basis. That Task Force is actively attempting to develop

standards to facilitate the nationwide needs of libraries and libraryrelated activities which can best be satisfied by computer networks and

large data bases. A substantial portion of the Task Force endeavor is

the development of a consistent terminology which does not conflict with

the terminology used in associated fields, such as the telecommunications field. The task force is attempting to build these standards

upon a base of existing domestic and international standards in the

field of computers, communications, and information processing.

A good snapshot of such related standardization is contained in the

recent NBS Special Publication 500-6 entitled Computer Network Intercon- nection : Problems and Prospects (see reference). That publication

defines "computer network" as "an interconnection of assemblies of

computer systems, terminals, and communications facilities." It also

defines "protocol" as "a formal set of conventions governing the format

and relative timing of message exchange between two communicating

processes.

Figure 1 shows four levels of protocols involved in computer networks. Other levels could be postulated. The real world of hardware is

at the bottom, where the horizontal line can be copper wire, coaxial

cable, microwaves, satellite links, laser beams, fiber optics, and the

like. The hardware protocol involves signal levels, analog versus

digital techniques, signal polarities, pulse rates, unbalanced versus balanced (one signal versus push-pull signals), electrical, optical

techniques, and other physical matters.

The data communications link protocol involves grouping bits re- ceived from the host level, adding error control bits, checking for the

detection of errors, correcting errors by logical means or by retransmission of faulty blocks, and other techniques to get data from one end

of a link to the other in a reliable and controlled fashion.

Mr. Little is a member of the technical staff in the Center for Computer

Systems Engineering, Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology,

National Bureau of Standards. He was coordinator of the 1976-77 NCLIS/

NBS Task Force on Computer Network Protocal

28
APPLICATION

LEVEL

APPLICATION

PROTOCOL APPLICATION

LEVEL

HOST LEVEL

COMMUNICATIONS

LEVEL

END TO END

PROTOCOL

DATA

COMMUNICATIONS

LINK PROTOCOL

HOST LEVEL

COMMUNICATIONS

LEVEL

HARDWARE

LEVEL

HARDWARE

PROTOCOL HARDWARE

LEVEL

FIGURE 1.

Four levels of protocols involved in computer networks

29
The "hosts" in the next level are the actual computers (at libraries, bibliographic service centers, book vendors, and related

organizations). The end-to-end protocol takes place between one host

computer and another, and involves a separate level of error control as

a gross check on the lower level protocols. If great confidence could

be placed upon the correct functioning of the lower levels, then endto-end protocol would not be necessary. The end-to-end error checking

verifies that the data are received correctly and that the lower-level

blocks have been reassembled in the original order. There are standards

or proposed standards for the three lowest levels and the interfaces

between levels. These are described in the Special Publication cited

heretofore.

The application level is the real province of the Task Force

effort, in this case for the computer- to-computer exchange of library/

bibliographic search/cataloging/book vending information. The application level protocol involves the addressing, identification, and

control required to pass data between a process (program) in one host

computer and another process (program) in a different host computer on the network. The information at the application level comprises header

(control) portions in all messages and it may also contain a data

portion in some messages.

The complete collection of bits which comprise header control and

data at the application level are passed down one level and treated

entirely as data in the end-to-end level, where more bits are added for

identification and error control purposes before being passed down to

the network or communications link level, where still more bits are added for routing, blocking, and another level of error control.

Thus, as the information is passed down the hierarchy from one

level to the next, new header and control information is added to

provide an "envelope" for the information from above. After transmission, as the information is passed up the hierarchy from one level to

the next, the successive enveloping controls are removed, so that at the

top, application level, an exact replica of the original message is

received. In the receiving process program, the message is divided into

control information and data, and acted upon accordingly. This Task

Force has made the assumption, with fingers crossed, that the application messages will be received correctly and in the proper sequence.

The formats being developed and described by this Task Force for

the application level headers are for the computer- to-computer exchange

of library search, bibliographic documentation, and book-ordering information. It is not a protocol for librarians to compose. Librarians

should be able to continue to communicate via terminals to their own host computers, in a familiar format, and the host computer, guided by

these formats, would be required to reformat this information into the

format of the library network protocol before it is sent over the network to another host computer.

30
In interchanging information between computers, it has been rec- ognized for several years that there are really only two choices: 1) use

an identical computer archtecture at each site, and interchange data in

the native codes and formats of these computers, or 2) interchange using

only strings of standard characters, such as ASCII characters, and allow

each character to have only its standard meaning. In the real world of

dissimilar computers, only choice 2) is available, and the NCLIS/NBS

Task Force on Computer Network Protocol is pursuing it.

Since the extremely fast moving computer industry is only 25 years

old, the standards at all levels are still very fluid and dynamic in

their development, which adds an interesting dimension to the work of

this Task Force. To attempt some stabilization, the Task Force is

confining its attention only to the highest application level, and in

particular is restricting its efforts only to the header portion of

messages. But some fundamental decisions needed to be made before even that could be attempted.

Figure 2 shows a "library bus " or electronic data communications

network interconnecting the Library of Congress, some bibliographic

service centers, regional processors, book vendors, and the like. A

fundamental decision had to be made regarding the use of "poi nt-topoi nt " connections, "star" ( mul tipoi nt-to-poi nt) connections, "broadcast" messages on the bus, or point-to-point messages on the bus.

Point-to-point messages on the bus was chosen. Any message from a host

is addressed to only one other host on the network (bus). Only one host

should respond to or receive any particular book for an interlibrary

loan. A broadcast type request, if it were permitted, might turn up a fast reply from dozens of sources. The originating host would then need

to decide which one to pursue. There would be many one-way messages

with or without acknowledgment. The same could be said about the

seeking of price quotations for the purchase of new books. It was decided that any "originating" host would select one "target host" and

for a given "session" exchange messages with that host only, over the

library bus network.

The expressions "originating host" and "target host" were coined to

describe the status of two hosts during a particular session. During

that session, messages flow in both directions, but any particular

message flows in only one direction, from its "source" to its "destination. "

Some other terms that have caused some confusion are shown in

figure 3. A session between two host computers can involve more than

one kind of process, such as cataloging or ordering. A process such as cataloging can involve several types of transactions such as search or editing. Each of these transaction types can in turn cause several

different types of messages to be generated.

Some of the foundation for this work is based upon the American

Library Association's Information and Science Automation Division

(ALA/ISAD), which identified: a) routing, b) target facility action

31
OCLC BALLOTS CHEMICAL AB.

SERVICE

LC ETC.

LIBRARY BUS

s

REGIONAL

PROCESSOR

I

LOCAL

PROCESSOR

FIGURE 2.

"Library bus" or electronic data communications network interconnecting

the Library of Congress, some bibliographic service centers, regional processors, book vendors, etc.

32
SESSION

PROCESS CATALOGING ORDER

/

TRANSACTION...SEARCH EDITING

MESSAGE. ..QUERY RESPONSE ADD DELETE MODIFY

FIGURE 3.

Terminology

33
SELECTED LIBRARY FUNCTIONS RELATED

TO NETWORK APPLICATIONS

ACQUISITIONS

• FINDING A CITATION; PRE-ORDER SEARCHING • ORDERS TO VENDORS; LATER CLAIMS, CANCELS,

RESPONSES • SEARCH & QUOTE

CATALOGING

O BIBLIOGRAPHIC SEARCH; SEARCH ALGORITHMS • INPUT, FORMATTING, OUTPUT • NOTIFICATION & SHARING

CIRCULATION

• COMMUNICATION WITH LOCAL CIRCULATION

SYSTEMS

• INTER-LIBRARY LOANS (FIND CLOSEST COPY) • NEGOTIATING BILATERAL AGREEMENTS

REFERENCE

• INDEXING & ABSTRACTING • CHECKING FOR CROSS-REFERENCE INFORMATION • "AUTHORITY " FOR CLASSIFICATION (LIBRARY OF

CONGRESS, VARIOUS LIBRARIES)

FIGURE 4.

34
control, and c) billing as three major types of computer networking

messages. These messages provide four main computer-related functions

for libraries, as shown in figure 4, for acquisition, cataloging, circulation, and reference services.

A message will be structured in accordance with the layout shown in

figure 5. The overall message structure, shown at the top, is 1) header

length (including the length field), 2) headers, 3) length of the data

field, and 4) data fields of any length up to a maximum. This Task

Force is concerned primarily with the structure of the header fields.

Each header field will have the structure shown in the middle line. An

operating (op) code of one octet (8 bits) will give the type of header

field. The second octet (or second and third octets) will give the

length of the header parameters field, and finally there will be the

parameters whose individual lengths are included in the specified

length.

A more detailed example is shown on the bottom line. The first

octet has a value of "1" indicating an op code for a source/destination

address header field. The second octet has a value "8" which says that

the parameters occupy 8 bytes , and as shown 4 of these are for the source address and 4 are for the destination address; within each of

these 4 bytes, 2 are for host identification and 2 are for unit identification.

The first octet will probably be an 8-bit binary number, so that

the number of op codes can increase up to 255 (or 256 if zero is allowed). This means that the bit patterns for ASCII or EBCDIC control

functions can occur in this octet, and hence the communication techniques must allow for "transparent" end-to-end communication. This can readily be done with the new family of evolving communication standards

typified by the ANSI Advanced Data Communication Control Procedure

(ADCCP) standard which has recently been brought into consonance with

the ISO High-level Data Link Control (HDLC) procedures. Further details

on ADCCP and HDLC are given in Computer Network Interconnection .

Ten other types of header op codes are shown in figure 6. Some of

these use only one address, and hence will be even shorter in length

than the source/destination address field.

As is evident, the Task Force is concerned with bit-structure

detail for the header portion of the highest level, the library and

information service application level. This Task Force is not concerned

with the data structure at that level, nor with bit details at any lower

level. Details outside of the application-level header are being

developed by other closely-related groups, such as the Network Advisory

Group (NAG), to the Library of Congress, the Network Technical Architecture Group (NTAG), a working group of the NAG, and the Authority File

Group, sponsored by NCLIS, which meets at the Library of Congress.

The header format being developed by the NCLIS/NBS Task Force on Computer Network Protocol, at the time of this paper (June 1977), is not

35
LENGTH HEADER FIELDS LENGTH DATA FIELD

(2 BYTES) (VARIABLE LENGTH) (2 BYTES) (VARIABLE LENGTH)

DP CODE LENGTH PARAMETERS

(1 BYTE) (1 BYTE) (VARIABLE LENGTH)

SOURCE/DESTINATION ADDRESS

01 08 HOST ID UNIT ID HOST ID UNIT ID

(2 BYTES) (2 BYTES) (2 BYTES) (2 BYTES)

II SOURCE ADDRESS DESTINATION ADDRESS

FIGURE 5.

Message structure

36
SOME HEADER

OP CODES

1. SOURCE/DESTINATION

ADDRESS

2. REPLY ADDRESS

3. BILLING ADDRESS

4. BULK REPLY ADDRESS

5. SEGMENT

6. DATE

7. TIME

8. DATE/TIME

9. PRIORITY

10. TIME LIMIT

11. RESOURCE LIMIT

FIGURE 6.

37
completely developed. At the time when it is fully defined (expected

date: September 1977), the format may become a proposed American

National Standard. However, it would seem more prudent to gain some operational experience in its use and capability before proposing it to

become a standard for use in library and information service networks.

The final report of this Task Force will be submitted to the American

National Standards Institute, the American Library Association and the

American Society for Information Science as well as to other relevant

organizations. Thus, the protocol developed for library use may be one

of the first protocol standards at the application level developed by

any community of specialized interest.

Reference

Cotton, Ira W. Computer Network Interconnection: Problems and Prospects

Washington, U.S. National Bureau of Standards; for sale by the Supt. of

Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1977. (NBS Special Publication 500-6).

38
Telecommunications and the Expansion of Information Services

by

Stuart L. Meyer

Telecommunications can expand information services in libraries.

We shall also see that telecommunications techniques can address some problems facing libraries. Telecommunications techniques can allow

institutions to become more cost effective by better sharing of resources among the various institutions and by serving a wider population of users (hence, distributing whatever costs exist among a wider

class of customers). Further, telecommunications can make expensive

resources available to scholars wherever they may be: in remote locations, hospitals, and so forth. They can provide greater opportunities

for professional growth and training of the library staff.

The technology for the systems I will be proposing already exists.

A cooperative effort among libraries is necessary to achieve it.

Libraries represent a special interest group; libraries themselves are a network of information centers.

The technical concept that underlies my vision of using telecommunications techniques in libraries is a coined phrase, control led-scan

televideo (CSTV). Slow-scan television (SSTV) was the first version of

it. Controlled-scan is used because, for efficiency, you match the rate

of transmission of information to whatever channel you have available.

Televideo implies the transmission of (stationary) visual information

over a distance; it is distinguished from television, which usually

implies motion.

What are the problems facing libraries that telecommunications

techniques might solve? The major problem is an uneven allocation of resources. Sharing resources is clearly the only way to go. Another

problem is that library staff do not fully utilize their professional

skills. They need to be motivated to advance professionally. A staff

development program could improve both morale and productivity. Next, we need an efficient document delivery system to match our fairly

sophisticated data base search systems. I think we must avoid, wherever

possible, the U. S. Postal Service as an efficient means of document

delivery. Finally, any system we devise must accommodate the new copyright laws.

With a telecommunications system we should be open to change both

in the present format of the printed page and in the printed page itself. Laboratory psychologists have found that the single column, in

which American books are frequently published, is too wide for efficient

Dr. Meyer is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. This paper is condensed from Dr. Meyer's

presentation.

39
reading. Even book formats should be reconsidered. Unless you like the

tactile feeling of turning a page, there is really no reason on technical grounds to propagate that particular format in a future system.

There are certain principles that should be adhered to in developing any telecommunications system. The first one is, "There ain't no free lunch." Everything costs. Then, there is the Principle of Sufficiency, which states that there are certain minimum functions which have

to be served by any system. There is also what can be called the Principle of Minimality, or the Principle of Economy, which says, "Do not do more than you have to do!" "Waste not, want not" is in much the same spirit as the Principle of Minimality or Economy. We want to take what

we have and use it to the fullest. A parallel philosophy is what I call

"parasitism." If you find that somebody else has already solved a problem, maybe you can cast your problem into a form that will fit that

solution. Don't do the work twice. Finally, in the specific technological situation that we'll be talking about, let me make two judgments. I think it is okay to generate specialized electronic devices

for relatively specialized uses like libraries —but not electromechanical devices, unless you can utilize technology that was developed for

the consumer market. If someone makes 100 million electromechanical

devices, they will probably work. But if you only make 10,000, there

probably will be maintenance problems.

A recent report of the Librarian of Congress, Daniel Boorstin,

stated that the whole point of library work is to put the needed object,

book, periodical, map, recording, or its intellectual substance, into

the hands of the user. You don't have to give the very book that you

have in the library to someone, just its intellectual substance. I like

this quotation, except I would substitute the mind of the user for the

hands of the user. Another worthy quotation by Dr. Boorstin is, "Are our collections as widely and fully used as they ought to be? No

indeed." This quote addresses some of the principles we discussed

earlier and represents recognized problems.

We have certain expectations of libraries which must be taken into

account in considering a telecommunications system. We expect certain

material s--books , journals, reports, audio-visual and computerized

systems. We expect certain services--bibl iographic searches, reference

interviews with librarians, teleconferences, staff development, and a document or materials delivery system.

We also expect different functions of libraries that communicate

with libraries and libraries that communicate with users. Their needs

are different, their volume of traffic is different, their need for access time is different, and their communications channels should very

likely be different. In developing a telecommunications systems, we want to match communications channels or distribution channels to the

needs of the particular user.

Before describing a system, let me define some terms. We all know

what real-time systems are; they are systems that produce information

40
almost instantaneously. In quasi-real-time information does not arrive

instantaneously, but it arrives fast enough . The distinction between

real-time and quasi-real-time should be emphasized. For example, I might request a book at five o'clock, and then go home. It does not

matter to me if that book does not arrive until eight o'clock the next

morning.

Interactive is also a very important concept. Fully interactive

means that the sender and receiver are constantly changing each other's

presentation or information flow. In a quas i - i nteract i ve mode, you

cannot alter the presentation, but you can modify it. Reading a book

exemplifies a quasi-interactive mode: you can skip pages, you can underline things, you can cross things out, and you can make corrections; you are not fully interactive with it, but you do have the

ability to modi fy the presentation.

Now we come to a distinction which I would like to emphasize; it is one of these very simple, almost trivial ones which, in many contexts,

is overlooked. That is the distinction between machine-readable information, which a computer can process, and machi ne-accessible information, which a computer can call up for you but cannot manipulate. If

you want to read a page, it is not necessary for your purposes that the

computer be able to read and understand that page. It might be sufficient in many cases for the computer to be able just to direct the

system to present that page to you. Once you realize that, you find

that you do not have to get all materials into machine-readable format.

Hard copy , we all know, is a piece of paper in front of you or a bound piece of paper. Soft copy is information in permanent form for as long as you want it, which you can call up on demand. For example, a book page which is stored on magnetic tape is what I call soft copy. I can look at it whenever I want, I can keep it for the next twenty- five

years, or I can erase it tomorrow. A transient display , for example, is

information on a TV set, viewable for as long as you want, but irretrievable once you turn it off.

Any kind of information, audio or visual, can be transmitted across telecommunications channels. From an economic point of view, the utilization of telecommunications channels involves two factors, bandwidth

and the time you utilize the channel. Bandwidth, in a digital sense,

tells you how many bytes per second you can send; in an analog sense, it

tells you how many hundreds of hertz or cycles per second you need to

utilize. The narrower the bandwidth used, the longer it will take to

transmit the information. Conversely, the wider the bandwidth, the

shorter the time necessary for transmission. Examples of narrowband

channels include the telephone or the AC power line in your house.

Wideband channels include satellite channels, TV channels, or cable TV

channels. Thus, we have two modes of operation: one we call a narrowband-channel mode , where we are using a channel such as a telephone line for a longer period of time; the other is a broadband channel

or frame-snatch mode , where we use a satellite channel for a shorter

period of time. We can divide up a channel for efficient utilization.

41
The narrowband mode is then called frequency division multiplex (FDM);

the frame-snatch mode is called time division multiplex (TDM).

Broadcast TV, the picturephone (about which I have nothing but bad

things to say), and control 1 ed-scan TV have different informationcarrying capacities or frequency bandwidths. In the slow-scan TV mode,

CSTV uses the telephone line. The ratio of the information-carrying

capacity of TV, picturephone, and telephone channels is 1000: 300: 1. You can send the same amounts of information over any one of them. It

just takes you different amounts of time to do it.

SSTV, which sends only still pictures, actually has some advantages

over television. You can, in fact, vary the resolution using the same telephone line. Basically, resolution is the ability to discern detail,

to see fine print or to see a larger or smaller number of characters.

If you want to send a higher resolution picture, it obviously takes you

longer. SSTV also has a gray scale capability for reproducing half-tone

photographs. The gray scale is frequently encoded as a certain number

of bytes of information. However, if you do not need it, do not use it.

That goes back to the Principle of Economy I mentioned earlier.

To transmit information I can also use an FM channel or something

called Subsidiary Communications Authorization (SCA) channels. They are frequency bands which are piggybacked on every FM station, one for

multiplex stereo stations and two for monaural. In Chicago, some ethnic

stations that cannot afford an FM station use SCA channels; a medical

service also uses them.

We have been talking about transmitting video information. We can also transmit audio information or combinations of video and audio

information. Obviously if I wanted to encode sixteen seconds of audio,

I can transmit it over the telephone line in sixteen seconds. That is

not difficult to understand. What is interesting is that there is a system on the market, VIDAC, developed by Westi nghouse , that can encode

sixteen seconds of audio as a video frame . Thus, you can use audio

technology to send pictures or picture technology to send audio.

Another example of telecommunications technology is the Remote

Blackboard, developed by the Bell Telephone Laboratories. It displays

the blackboard on a TV set and is useful for some kinds of teleconferences. Reasonable people might ask why the overhead projector is not

used as a model instead of a blackboard. Nevertheless, it does indicate

that we have the capability of sending pictures with camera format for

teleconferences.

The systems and technologies I have described can be applied to the

library services we previously talked about--reference interviewing,

teleconferences, training, data transmission, and document delivery. I am going to concentrate on the use of telecommunications for teleconferences and document delivery in libraries.

42
If a teleconference system were set up in a library, what features

would you want to have? You would like to have a camera input that

could focus on people and objects, such as books, documents, a blackboard or an overhead projector. You would like to be able to freeze the

picture or frame, so that a person would not have to sit still for sixty

seconds, store the picture, and then send it. Finally, you would want

to use a TV for display. It is a very economical display device and is

readily available.

What features would be important in a document delivery system?

First you would want flexibility in the format. You would want to be

able to transmit information from any size materials, bound or unbound.

You would want the gray scale to show photographs. You would want to be

able to vary the resolution. (You may be interested to know that PROJECT

INTREX at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) actually

measured the kinds of resolutions in TV lines that you need for transmitting different types of material. It found that English text

requires 1200 lines, Japanese text requires 1400 lines, while almost

anything to be found in a library can be resolved with 2000 lines.)

In order to have all materials available for a document delivery

system, it will be necessary to restrict access to the permanent collection. This restriction addresses one of the problems in libraries of

which some of you are aware, namely, the inability to find materials.

It is called the "not on shelf" problem in some quarters. Further, we want our system to reduce the fetching operation by trained professionals. With the document delivery system I will propose, we can reduce that fetch to one instance. We also want to store materials in a manipulable form. Use whatever electronic storage medium is economical

at the present time. Do not hold out for the most dense, the most

economical, the most effective system which will be available 20 years

from now. Once your materials are in a manipulable form, you can always

convert to whatever new form of storage presents itself on the horizon.

Storage of information will eliminate the need to keep going back to the

shelf for it; it will be retrieved once and stored for future requests.

I suggest you use some kind of magnetic tape for a large library like

the Library of Congress. I do not believe in the future of magnetic

tapes without reservation, but once it is in magnetic tape form, it can

be converted without using a lot of labor. I can use computers to do

the conversion and computers work 24 hours a day. Further, I can manipulate it into other forms.

Our document delivery system must also take into account the new copyright laws. You are going to have to keep records of the number of

times a certain material is accessed. I think the best thing to do is

to automate access and records of such accesses. When the publisher

wants to know how frequently the materials are used, you can tell how

many times they were accessed, and you strike an agreement and pay a fair price.

The Principle of Minimality suggests that we distinguish archival

qual ity , which is something that a library should be proud to have in

43
44
its permanent collection, and usable qual ity , which is all somebody

needs for perhaps a temporary use in our document delivery system.

Finally, we should consider output formats easiest for people to

read. Studies indicate that forty characters per line is easiest. It

is what the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times use. InterestinQly* you can display 40 characters per line on a TV set--even a poor

TV set.

What is the present sequence of events for library access? First,

there is the reference interview and the data base search. We do that

very well. Then, you have to identify the material you need. Here

begin the problems. Usually you do not have the abstract of it nor do

you have the table of contents. You do not have the ability to browse

to see if you really want that stuff. Then, once you do know what you

want, you have to locate it. Now we come to the real problem. Half the

libraries in the country, I am told, cannot even tell if a book, which

is in their card catalog, is anywhere in the library. The libraries

that can tell have, nevertheless, what is called the "not on shelf"

problem. (My solution, of course, is to keep the book there all the

time and just make copies, not in a Xerox form, but in some form of

machine-accessible storage medium.) If the book is not in the library,

then you have to order it. Interlibrary loan means that you ask for the

book, or ask for a photocopy, or you ask for a fiche copy. And then comes the fun. You wait for the U. S. Postal Service to do its thing,

and you wait and wait and wait. One of my colleagues at Northwestern

refers to "twentieth century bibliographic search techniques and

medieval delivery systems"; he is very right.

CSTV could be used in libraries for teleconferences and as a document delivery system. The system has been on the market for a long

time; it is what I call a retrograde technology, which is at the moment

very cheap. As I mentioned before, you can show pictures or type with

at least 40 characters per line. You have a gray scale capability. We

used CSTV to teach students who were three blocks away. Motorola's

Engineering Research Laboratory in Schaumburg, Illinois has used it to

provide continuing education to its professionals. It has one major

disadvantage: you must drive to the campus for the course. If it takes

an hour to drive to the campus, and an hour to drive back, you use three

hours of time for each hour of instruction. If an engineer's time is

worth thirty dollars an hour, one class hour will cost ninety dollars.

That is a lot of money.

Can we teach people off campus? Can we do teleconferencing at a distance? We did some experiments in teleconferencing to show that this

kind of thing can be done. There are other examples too. A medical

conference was held between Northwestern and Balboa Naval Hospital in

San Diego. Figure 1 shows the LANTEL system that we built some years

ago with a completely solid state memory. The little camera unit, which

is the transmitter, made it up to the Arctic Circle and down to Guadeloupe Island to watch a volcano blow up. The picture is displayed on a 65 dollar TV set that was not modified in any way. We bought it at a

45
46
47
discount store in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The whole system is contained

in the box labeled LANTEL. Basically, the idea is that if you have a telephone link going anywhere and you have a television set for whatever

reason, even to watch television, all you need is a black box that will

assemble the information in pieces over the telephone line, store it up,

and then spit it out at video rates for a stable display on your TV set.

Once it travels over audio lines, of course, you have the full spectrum

of devices which have been developed for audio links. You can manipulate the picture electronically; you can store it on audio cassettes.

(Audio cassettes are acceptable electromechanical devices because

Norelco has built a couple hundred million of them.) Figure 2 shows the

resolution for pictures and Figure 3 for text. It is a lousy system

with 250 line resolution because we did not have enough money to build

enough memory. But it has been working since July 1974, and it has the

capability of showing forty characters per line. (Remember I told you

the INTREX study indicated that text really requires 1200 lines.)

Figures 4, 5, and 6 diagram the production and storage, distribution, and display stages of a telecommunications system designed for a network of primary, secondary, and tertiary libraries. Primary libraries are the main sources of certain kinds of information. Even

small libraries can be primary libraries with respect to certain collections.

How does the system work? What are we going to do the first time

somebody wants a library material? Well, we have to send the fetcher

and hauler to get it; I cannot eliminate that first time. However,

instead of making one Xerox copy of it for the user, we film it using a high resolution television document camera (Figure 4). (Cameras have

advantages over FAX machines.)

At this point, let me tell you about a commercial system on the

market, made by Ampex, called a Videofile, that can scan 1280 lines.

Once the text is filmed, you can transmit it, transfer it to cassette

tapes, or store it using the Videofile which has a 1200 line resolustion. There is a control unit. When there is a request for a material, it is retrieved and a copy is always made for the video file on the sheer chance that some second person might want the same material.

That is the crucial step, which saves the fetching operation for ac- cesses two through infinity. This system can store 166,000 pages on about a 12i$-inch diameter by 2- inch reel. There are other ways of

doing the same thing. Patent number 3,803,350 claims to have a cheaper

way to store high resolution. The important point is that one can produce material on magnetic tape with very dense storage which is, at

least, machine accessible. If, later on, it turns out not to be so cheap, you can switch it into a cheaper format.

How do you distribute it? (Figure 5) Well, you can make audio

cassettes and mail them out or take them home. Or you could take the

information from an audio cassette, store it in a buffer, and send it

out to a TV set or make another cassette copy of it. Or you could

48
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transmit the information using whatever channel is available—a telephone line, a TV cable, or, if there is enough traffic volume, a dedicated line, a satellite channel.

Figure 6 shows what the display unit looks like. Here I have an audio cassette and a channel going through a control unit to a buffer.

This system can display more than 500-line materials on a 500-line

system. But it is not necessary. With specialized TV devices, you can

go all the way to the right on the diagram where it says TV high re- solution. Libraries can probably justify having high resolution

systems. The Ampex Videofile system has, in fact, a whole bunch of

special TV sets. An interesting point is that you might even be able to

reach people in their homes and use ordi nary TV sets. Library people

tell me that users my age or older "need" hard copy. I think this will

change. My feeling is that you get cluttered up with paper rather

quickly, and even though we have to provide the capability for the

transition period, I predict that it will fall into disuse, except for

certain applications. As an example of release from the constraint of

hard copy, 600 pages of text can be stored on an ordinary audio

cassette.

52
Uses of Teleconferencing in Crisis and Warning Situations

by

Thomas G. Belden

Back in the Dark Ages when I first joined the Institute for Defense

Analyses, I think it was 1962, Jerome Wiesner, who was then the science

advisor at the White House, came to us with a problem. He said suppose

there were a crisis in NATO and there was not enough time to get the

players together physically, how would you wire them together? Although

it sounds like a simple question, it is rather complicated because NATO

consists of 16 countries that speak 11 different languages, two of which

are official. Dr. Wally Sinaiko and I first conducted a literature

search to find out all about teleconferencing. Either there was a "not

on shelf" problem or there wasn't any 1 i terature--we never knew which.

So we did something that we were not supposed to do at IDA; we ran some experiments of our own. We found five rooms underneath the Hot Shoppes

on Connecticut Avenue and wired them up in various ways. When we began

to compare actual differences in media of communications under various

conferencing task conditions, we found a lot of our preconceptions, such

as "broader bandwidth is always better," were destroyed. We were aided

in this experiment by the excellent consulting services of Dr. Jerry Kidd.

We did a lot of work together on various types of display conferencing as well.

Well, let's make a great leap forward, and I will tell you about

the awful environment in which I work now; it is one in which you can only lose — it is the warning and crisis business. I would like to give

you a little background as to why this is a peculiar problem and why

teleconferencing is key to a part of the solution, we hope, to the

problem. I would like to mention some of the things that we are doing

today. In the audience today are Nate Fitz and Tom Yingling, my current

colleagues, who with the help of Jerry Kidd (University of Maryland,

College of Library and Information Services) are trying to improve

communications across some very thick bureaucratic barriers in the

Government in a very quick time situation.

First, let me tell you what I feel is the primary objective of

intelligence in warning and crisis operations. Everybody does not agree

with it, but it happens to be our point of view. The primary objective

of warning is crisis avoidance, within the limits of our national policy.

If you cannot avoid a crisis, the next best thing is to manage it to

satisfy national policy objectives without resorting to military force.

If you cannot do that, use conventional military force and diplomatic

efforts to avoid long or severe conflict, conventional or nuclear. If

that fails, end the conflict on terms as favorable to our interests as possible and before Armageddon.

At the time of the Conference, Dr. Belden was a member of the Intelligence

Community staff.

53
What do we mean by the word warm' ng? Everybody has a different

definition of it. To me, warni ng implies decisions and actions. For

instance, to residents in Washington, D. C. , a radio bulletin that

tornadoes are going to hit Topeka, Kansas at six o'clock this evening is an estimate or a forecast. However, if you live in Topeka, Kansas, it

is a warni ng because it implies that you have to make some decisions to

take action. If you look at warni ng from that point of view, warni ng

becomes a process and a rather complex one.

The warning process starts with indicators; there can be military

and nonmilitary indicators, including economic, political, and so forth.

Indicators can be long term, mid term, and short term. Now the problem

of intelligence is to converge all of these indicators, regardless of

what they are, to make some sort of an analysis. The analysis then

generates the decision; the decision then generates an action; the

action that we take, wittingly or unwittingly, becomes a potential

indicator to the other side. And they do the very same thing that we just did. They make an analysis, make a decision, and take an action,

which becomes a potential indicator to us. Thus, it is a process.

These cycles can be years long, months long, days long, hours long.

Unfortunately, our government is not organized to meet the demands

of the warning process. Some major bureaucratic barriers exist, particularly between the analysi

s

and decision functions (the intelligence community and the policy and decision makers), and between the

analysi

s

(intelligence) functions and the world of the action functions

which are the responsibilities of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the

various U.S. Unified and Specified Commanders. Communications across these barriers is very, very difficult in our government. We are going

to talk about how we are trying to break down these barriers with

improved interagency communications.

The warning process is cyclical, being generated by the actions

emanating from opposing decision makers. What you do affects what he

does, and what he does affects what you do. This phenomenon of interaction has profound implications upon the concept known as i ntentions .

Whenever a nation is contemplating a major pol itical-mi 1 itary

action against another country, it has to go through a series of steps.

As one ascends the steps (figure 1), the probability of war increases.

At the bottom of the steps, or before an action is considered, there is zero probability of war. As each step beyond the initial action is taken,

the probability of war increases. At any time, however, decisionmaker B might take an action which alters the situation in such a way as to cause decisionmaker A to change his mind, back off, and go down the

stairway, away from hostilities.

At the bottom of the stairway, the national decisionmaker must be aware of his own capabilities (and limitations), of what he can and can- not do. Once he feels threatened by another nation, he begins to figure

out what his political options are. He must then examine contingency

54
55
options and plans and, if the threat continues, move up the decision

staircase with operational plans, orders, commands, and finally, ex- ecution. But, in this process, the opponent can sometimes do something

to make the other man change his mind and go down the stairway.

Let me give an illustration of the decision stairway in the events

leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the late 1930s, the Japanese

attained the capability to dominate the Western Pacific. However, they

were also engaged in a war with China, which antagonized us. We imposed

certain economic sanctions on Japan and that irritated them. They

responded with contingency options and plans which, after we imposed an

oil embargo, caused the Japanese to begin to plan the attack on Pearl

Harbor. We were still eighteen months prior to the event. Negotiations

were going on between the United States and Japan while Admiral Nagumo,

the Japanese task force commander, was moving his fleet across the North

Pacific to Hawaii. On the second day at sea he opened the sealed en- velope which contained orders for him to attack the U. S. Fleet at Pearl

Harbor if two conditions were satisfied: 1) the U. S. Fleet was in

Pearl Harbor, and 2) he could achieve surprise. But the final decision

as to whether those conditions had been achieved was left to Admiral

Nagumo; he was getting that information from his intelligence network in

Hawaii. He was under additional orders that if, by chance, he was detected by the U. S. Fleet, even though he was only one day out from

Oahu, he was, in effect, to go on deck, bow politely, say that his task

force was on exercise and bring it back to Japan.

If we had had a good warning system, so that we knew of Nagumo'

s

task force, and if we had been sophisticated enough to let the Japanese

know that we knew they were approaching Pearl Harbor, then Nagumo would

have been deterred from attacking. Let me ask you what could have been

said about the Japanese i ntention to attack Pearl Harbor? The word

intention is a very slippery word. Intentions are always buried down

underneath as options, but you cannot say with certainty what the other man is going to do until he gives the final command to execute. I am afraid that I am trying to destroy the romantics' James Bond school of

intelligence, where the agent comes in three weeks before Pearl Harbor

and takes out from the heel of his boot a message that the Japanese are going to attack Pearl Harbor at 7:57 on the seventh of December. No

way. The Japanese delayed the intention to attack as late as was feasible, using the standard decision technique of keeping one's options

open as long as possible. This is the pattern in crisis situations. It

is what makes intelligence so difficult, because every prediction has to

be made in a probabilistic fashion. There is no certainty in this

business.

The important point is that the best any intelligence system can do

is to determine where the opponent is on the decision stairway . Let us consider the information that has to be converged to construct the

stairway. At the time of Pearl Harbor, you had essentially three

intelligence organizations, the FBI, the Army's G-2, and the Office of

Naval Intelligence. At the end of Korea, there were more intelligence

56
organizations. And at the end of 1969, there was an even greater proliferation of agencies. I am not being critical of any of these

organizations because they all do excellent work. The problem is how to

converge the critical, relevant information when you have so many organizations to deal with. It gets exponentially more difficult because

you are going to have more and more data, and the greater the volume of

data, the less likely it is that you retrieve what is germane. Now I have not drawn the current chart, first, because before it dried, it

would be changed, and second, because I want to keep my sanity for

another year. Whenever the Government faces a problem of this kind, the

panacea is either to reorganize or to establish a new organization. In

fact, we are going through that right now. There is so much turmoil

that when we leave our offices, we say to the secretary, if the boss

calls, get his name.

Four years ago I was loaned to the intelligence community and I have not had any time off for good behavior. What I did was to lay out

the various kinds of crises in terms of the time constant, that is, how

much time do you have to deal with them. For example, shooting down an EC-121 is a very quick crisis, virtually unpredictable. The Cuban

missile crisis is days or weeks long. An energy crisis creeps along over many years. Now for longer kinds of crises, you have lots of

Government structure, all the way up to the President, dealing with

them. But for the shorter, quicker crises, you really do not have

anything. Here is this great big blank and the first temptation is to

reorganize to fill it. This time we decided not to reorganize, but to

fill that gap with something new and different. We decided to take advantage of the current organizations that we have, but have them com- municate with each other in some new ways that they have never done

before.

We set up a conferencing system called the National Operations and

Intelligence Watch Officers' Net (NOIWON), which allows the operation

centers of CIA, DIA, NSA, State, State INR, J-3, and the White House

Situation Room to call a secure voice conference at any time. It is a dedicated net so that the minute a critical message comes into any one

of these places, it can be passed on to the other six operations centers.

You will notice we included in this network not only intelligence

agencies, but also the operations side of the military and the State

Department. This was very critical because it provided a way to break

down barriers among bureaucracies. To establish NOIWON, it cost only 50

dollars to put five toggle switches on a telephone at NSA and it took

only two weeks to install the necessary equipment. But it took 10

months to make it operational because of the cultural differences among

these people. "CIA people do not talk to J-3 people," and so forth.

However, by exercising the net for 10 months, and with lots of hard work

on the human side, we finally convinced everyone of its usefulness. You

could not tear the system out now. I mean they use it too much! They

use it four times an hour during a crisis. It is established and going.

57
All ideas go through what I call a three "0" stage. First they are Outrageous, then Obvious, and finally. Obsolete. The NOIWON is now in

the Obvious stage. Our other idea is still in the Outrageous stage.

When you are in a crisis, you need to get the smartest people in town who

know about that part of the world. If it is a Lebanese evacuation, you

need people who know the downtown streets of Beirut, and all the roads.

You know these people exist. The problem is to be able to reach them no matter what part of the government they are in. We propose a human

retrieval system, a computer which does not give you data or references

but gives you names and telephone numbers of people who are smart about

certain things. We are trying to promote this under the name of MYCROFT.

We named it after Sherlock Holmes' elder, smarter brother who used to be

the great converger of information on the British Empire; he would brief

the Prime Minister every morning about the state of the world. There is no such person, of course, but we think that collectively a lot of

people could perform this function.

Once you find out who the people are, the next step is to give them

a conferencing capability as well. If this group includes operations

and intelligence people, we felt they should have a bit more than just a secure voice speaker phone. What we have done is to create what we call

a CONTEXT system in five locations: one at the State Department to be

shared by the operations people as well as the intelligence people; one at CIA for the PCI , the CIA, and the National Intelligence Officers; one at NSA; one at the Pentagon; and one at the new headquarters of the

Intelligence Community staff on F Street. These rooms are connected

together by a secure voice conferencing net which terminates in very

high quality speaker phones. If we had one here on the table, you could

hear it all over this room. Thus, you can have very large conferences

in each room, which can be connected throughout the intelligence

community. The CONTEXT rooms also have a mini -computer, keyboard, an auxiliary memory unit, a hard copy printer, and a large CRT screen like

the kind used in airports to announce flight arrivals.

The object in planning these CONTEXT rooms is to imitate what

people would do rf they sat around a table to write a situation report

because that is what happens in a crisis. During a crisis, the President

demands a situation report every two hours. We do not want people

piling into their cars and driving an hour to get to some location to

have this conference. We want them to be able to go to the CONTEXT room

at their own agency, where they have access to the information they

need. When a crisis occurs, somebody usually prepares a draft statement. With CONTEXT, this draft can be put into the auxiliary

memory of the mi ni -computer. When the conference is called, the chair- man will have everyone take a hard copy of the draft from the printer.

The chairperson can then ask the operator to put the first paragraph

on the CRT. Changes in the text can be discussed on the speaker phone

system and adopted. The group then proceeds, paragraph by paragraph,

through the statement. When discussion of the draft is completed, the

mini -computer, with automatic editing routines, can print it immediately.

58
This system, of course, is no panacea. You have to be very careful

when you give the community a tool of this kind. One of the things you

do not want to do is design a system that will permit people to make

stupid decisions faster; therefore, in the procedures, you have to provide

for dissenting views.

There are many different systems that can be brought to bear in

this problem of crisis and warning. I do not want to give you the

impression here today that we have done anything that is any panacea.

But, if we could improve our batting average by two percent, it would be

worth the effort.

However, the basic problem remains: given all the improvements in

physical communication, what do people have to say to each other? How

precisely do they say what they mean? One of the most difficult forms

of precise expressions is making warning statements in probabilistic

terms.

The decision stairway can be expressed in terms of time and probability. This requires that warning must also be expressed in these

terms. The minimum expression of an interactive warning estimate must

be in the form:

There is a % probability that A will act upon B by (when).

There are many possible variations on this statement. First,

probability can be expressed in terms of words, including auxiliary

verbs and adverbs (might, might possibly, probably, and the like).

Unfortunately, such expressions convey different meanings to different

people. The uses of numbers (20%, probability, 3-to-l odds, 4 chances

in 10, and the like) are not without difficulties as well, particularly

when used with false precision (e.g., 23.2%), but they do have the merit

of internal consistency. Further, the choice of the number itself is

not as important as the change over time of the number on a given estimate.

In making a probability statement, one must always keep in mind

what one's own actions might do to the prediction. This holds even if one is not one of the two opposing parties. Some remarks should

accompany the probability statement giving the assumptions regarding

these potential interactions.

At any given time, an analyst might write several warning estimates

related to the situation. This will allow him to review the estimates

periodically and record any changes in the probability and the reason(s)

for the change. The changes can be used to "take the temperature" of

the situation. To do this, one must use precisely the same form of

probability statement in the reassessment over time.

The importance for the policy-maker-consumer of accepting probabilistic warning estimates cannot be overemphasized because they relate to

the type of decision (from drastic down to none) he is attempting to

make. He should also remember that if the kind of decision at hand does

59
not require an estimate of great precision, a higher probability might

be expressed. One possibility is for the consumer and the intelligence

analyst responsible for a warning estimate to confer and agree on a series of basic probability statements and, without changing the wording,

to review from time to time the changes in the probability and the reasons why the changes occurred.

As evidenced by our performance in past crises, our national nervous system is not designed for a coherent response in most situations. Not

only do we fail at human communications within our system, but we fail

to perceive the interactions between our decision-makers and our opponents. We fail to express our estimates in probabilistic terms and

relate these estimates to the kinds of alternative decisions that can

be taken.

None of these shortcomings can be overcome by simple panaceas.

However, there are steps which can be taken, particularly in the area of more precise communication across the diverse parts of our government.

These remedies cannot be administered by any one segment, diplomatic,

intelligence, or military. They must be done together.

Reference : Belden, Thomas G. , "Indications, Warning, and Crisis

Operations," International Studies Quarterly , v. 21,

no. 1, March 1977, pp. 181-197.

60
Interactive Telecommunications via Satellite

by

Earl Henderson

Beginning with the launch of ATS-1, the first in a planned series

of seven application and communication technology satellites, the use of

interactive communication systems for health and education programs has

expanded rapidly. Labeled by such coined words as "teleconference,"

"telemedicine," and "tele-education," these systems have been used in

classrooms, conference halls, libraries, hospitals, and even private

homes in small Alaskan villages.

A principal factor leading to the widespread use of this technology

was the development of the small earth terminal. Earlier satellite systems employed large ground stations, some with 85-foot diameter antenna

systems. In fact, several of the earth stations in the international

Intelsat Satellite Network operate with 100-foot antenna systems. These

large and costly systems are limited to the most highly sophisticated,

multiuser communication networks. It is not surprising, therefore, that

the era of small earth terminals, which use antennas only 10 feet in

diameter, has had a major impact.

The United States took a major step into the field of communications satellites with the launch of SCORE, the first U. S. active

repeater satellite. This satellite, launched in December 1958,

transmitted a Christmas message from President Eisenhower. The next

milestone came in July 1963 when Syncom, a geosynchronous communications

satellite, was launched. Syncom demonstrated the capability which has

led to the existing international communications satellite network,

Intel sat.

The major breakthrough for small terminals came on December 7,

1967, when NASA launched ATS-1. This satellite provided an audio relay

capability for an area greater than one-third of the earth's surface.

Positioned over the Pacific Ocean, it has supported programs for the

past 10 years, far beyond its projected life span of two years. In

1970 ATS-1 became the heart of a large-scale, interactive, audio telemedicine network. The subsequent ATS-6 and CTS systems have expanded

their earth terminal capabilities to include video transmissions. The

experimental communication satellites are shown in Table 1.

The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, part

of the National Library of Medicine, was among the first to join with

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to explore the

use of satellites for telecommunications. The center sponsored the

development and operation of the Alaskan ATS-1 interactive system. This

Mr. Henderson is Chief of the Communications Engineering Branch, Lister

Hill National Center for Biomedical Communication, National Library of

Medici ne.

61
network provided voice communications between doctors and health aides

in 26 remote Alaskan villages and brought to many of its users their

first reliable communication link with the outside world. Although this

system attempted only to duplicate the capability of a good telephone

system, it reached remote villages that had never had land- line telephone service.

Table 1. Experimental U. S. Communication Satel 1 i tes

System Date

SCORE 1958

ECHO 1960

COURIER "~ 1960

TELSTAR 1962

RELAY 1962

SYNCOM 1963

EARLYBIRD 1964

ATS-1 1966

ATS-2 (Failed) 1967

ATS-3 1967

ATS-4 (Failed) 1968

ATS-5 (Partial Failure) 1969

ATS-6 1974

CTS 1976

ATS-1 was also used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for

pan-Pacific teleconferences. Communications between NIH in Bethesda,

Maryland and the Cook Islands in the Pacific were conducted weekly in

support of the research programs of the National Institute of Allergy

and Infectious Diseases.

A larger, pan-Pacific network of 23 sites located in Washington,

DC, Appalachia, Alaska, and the Pacific Islands participated in a seven- month teleconference program for educators. This program was conducted

62
by the National Education Association. The experiment demonstrated the

unique ability of satellites to link together large groups from a wide

geographical area in a single event. It also showed that too many

participants actually limit interaction. As the number of respondents

increase, the interactive teleconference network is limited to a passive

role for most participants.

In anticipation of NASA's plan to launch the ATS-6 satellite, the

Lister Hill Center procured small terminals that could transmit and

receive video. Following the 1974 launch of ATS-6, networks of these

small terminals were used in a wide range of health and education programs. Video receivers with audio talk-back capability were used in more than 100 facilities throughout the continental United States and

Alaska. Joint programs were developed within the Department of Health,

Education, and Welfare (DHEW) and the Veterans Administration. Although

many ATS-6 programs were limited to less than one year, before the

spacecraft was relocated to support programs in India, the success of

this demonstration is reflected in the continued interest of participants in planned follow-on programs. The state of Alaska liked its

ATS-1 experience enough to install a statewide operational system using

a commercial satellite. ATS-6, now back for U. S. usage, is being used

to support educational programs in Appalachia.

The Public Health Service of DHEW and the Veterans Administration

are conducting programs with ground networks using the CTS spacecraft.

The general objectives of the PHS health experiments are to evaluate

broadband (video, audio, and data) satellite communications:

0 As an aid to decentralized medical education;

0 As a way to minimize travel, and to reduce the limitations of

remote geographic location on the continuing education of

health professionals; and

0 As a medium for more effective transfer of new knowledge

generated by biomedical research.

Currently, the following health agencies and their components are involved in this experimental program.

0 National Institutes of Health

0 NIH Office of Communications

0 National Library of Medicine

0 Health Resources Administration

0 Bureau of Health Manpower

63
0 Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration

0 National Institute of Drug Abuse

These PHS-sponsored experiments, commencing in 1977, include teleconferencing among health professionals, continuing medical education

projects, sharing of off-site faculty resources, off-campus admission

interviews and minority recruitment, and other health-related applications. These experiments are summarized in Table 2.

The PHS ground stations will be located at:

1. The University of Alaska, Fairbanks

2. The University of Washington, Seattle

3. The University of Montana, Bozeman

4. The University of Colorado, Denver

5. The University of Kentucky, Lexington

6. The National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.

The control center for all CTS ground stations in the United States

is located at the NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio. The

network control centers for the PHS-CTS operation will be located at

Bethesda and Seattle. All six ground stations are technically identical. They are capable of transmitting and receiving one video and

four audio channels; in addition, a separate audio control channel is

available. The stations are connected to existing audiovisual facilities at each of the universities. They include studio and conference

centers. The Lister Hill Center provides station operators for the

earth terminals, and the university operates the audiovisual support

functions.

Communications satellites are assumed to be of fundamental importance in developing future communication networks for health education

and the transfer of biomedical research results to the practicing com- munity. With satellite-aided communications, transmission costs are technically independent of distance; reliability is independent of

terrain. A prime requisite in most health applications is for a spacecraft which permits the use of low-power, relatively low-cost ground

stations widely distributed. The predominant commercial use of satellite communications today assumes the use of powerful, high-cost

ground transmit installations. It is important, therefore, that the

health community identify its needs in the utilization of this technology so that it can effectively define a market of sufficient size to

influence the design of suitable future satellites.

64
Project

Nursing Child Assessment Satellite

Training

Dietitians Workshop

Continuing Dental

Education

Western Region Meeting

Teleconference

AVLINE Material Review

Drug Abuse Prevention

Teleconference

Admissions and Minority

Recruitment

Independent Learning

and Faculty Sharing

Health Consultation

Legislative Process

Research Dissemination

Table 2. Summary of PHS-CTS

Implementing Agency

University of Washington • School of Nursing

American Dietetic Association

Experiments

Communication Mode and

Transmission Method

1. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

2. Simplex Video/Audio, CTS

3. Videotapes, In-person

1. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

2. In-person

Consortium comprising Health

Systems Research Division, University of Florida, and four

schools of dentistry at the

Universities of Colorado,

Kentucky, Maryland, and

Washi ngton

1. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

2. In-person

Association of American Medical 1. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

Col leges

Association of American Medical

Col leges

National Institute on Drug Abuse 1. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

Consortium of four universities:

Washington, Alaska, Montana, and

Idaho (WAMI)

WAMI

WAMI

WAMI

National Institutes of Health

1. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

2. In-person

1. In-person

2. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

3. Prepared Material, Mail

1.- Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

2. In-person

1. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

1. Full-Duplex Video/Audio, CTS

65
Telecommunication R&D—Implications and Support for Library Programs

by

Richard W. H. Lee

Within the last 15 years we have witnessed a definite, although

quiet, revolution in library operations in the United States. This

drastic change was brought about by the introduction of computers into

information processing, which gave rise to the new emphasis on technical

services of libraries and the new discipline of information science as it is applied to the traditional field of library science. Before this

time, mechanization of library operations was largely based on EAM

equipment, microfilms, and mechanical devices such as the Termatrix

optical coincidence device or the Royal McBee needle-shakers. In the

early sixties, computer applications in libraries were localized and

used principally in two quite distinct functional areas. One was the

automation of the usual repetitive, labor intensive, administrative type

of operations such as ordering and receiving of books and subscriptions,

claims, circulation control, routing, accounting, maintenance of master

holding lists, and so forth. The other area of application was for

systematic information searching and retrieval using computerized bibliographic data bases. The latter has also resulted in the initiation of

SDI (selective dissemination of information) or user current awareness

services in libraries. Consequently, there has been a great improvement

in information services and the efficiency of library operations.

However, such applications did not result in substantial changes in

the basic structure or character of libraries. Libraries were operating

just as before except a little faster. In most cases, computer searches were offered as a service function separate from the regular library

operations and were handled by a special group of information or com- puter specialists.

With the advent of telecommunication and time-sharing systems in

the late sixties, dramatic changes began to take place in libraries.

There has been a rapid evolution with respect to their service functions, resource allocation, management philosophy, personnel requirements, staffing pattern, organizational structure, and so on. Some

comments on these prominent changes will illustrate this point.

1. The combination of computer and telecommunication has been

serving as an effective equal izer among rich and poor, big and small

libraries in so far as information services are concerned. Previously,

only relatively large and rich private organizations and large Government agencies could afford the luxury of computerized information systems. In those days, in order to establish a computerized system.

Dr. Lee is Associate Program Director, Division of Scientific Information of the National Science Foundation.

66
one first had to have possession of, or access to, a scarce and expensive resource--a computer (usually in-house), and then had to create and

maintain a data base (or bases) and software either through purchase or in-house development. All of these were very expensive and beyond the

reach of the average organization and library. But with the rapid

development of on-line time-sharing access through commercially available information systems such as Lockheed, SDC, and others, and with the

greatly reduced computer and communication costs (e.g., no minimum

charge, only connect time is to be paid), almost everyone can afford

computerized search. Today, a small library can have access to the same range of computerized files as the largest libraries or information

centers. A one-person operation in a small town in a remote place can

use a terminal through regular telephone lines to explore the same CAS,

ERIC, NTIS, SPIN, or MEDLINE data bases plus a number of specialized

files. Thus, the user can have the same literature searching capabilities, sophistication, and comprehensiveness that is offered at a much larger, centrally-located, and rich library.

2. The widely available computerized data bases and on-line

processing capability have so vastly improved the accessibility of

information resources that they have practically eliminated geographic

distance as a barrier to information transfer. Libraries have discovered that they no longer live in isolation. As a matter of fact,

they have discovered that it is more desirable to become a node of a network or to form a consortium of some kind to pool their resources. Greater emphasis is now given to resource-sharing activities. Local

development is more or less limited to the handling of certain administrative functions such as ordering, cataloging, claims, payment

notices, and so forth, which are processed through network programs. In

a survey conducted in 1975, it was estimated that over 800 libraries,

including most of the major academic and public libraries in the nation, were participating in one or more networks or consortia for sharing

resources, using some types of computing and telecommunication equipment

to achieve common goals such as cooperative cataloging activities and

interlibrary loans. It is reasonable to assume that the total number

exceeds 1000 by now.

3. Expanded information service through computer and telecommunications has gradually changed the character of a library. As Mr. Darby

said this morning, technology forces change. Slowly but surely libraries are moving away from the traditional, passive, archival storage

and book-and- journal services (with limited reference service) and

moving into a new era of active information seeking, digesting, and

synthesizing organizations. Compiling in-depth and annotated bibliographies, which previously would take weeks to perform, is no longer a specialized and time-consuming chore . The user/librarian interface is

taking on a new dimension. Librarians today are actually guiding technical patrons through the process of examining and reexamining their

requests for information, defining their problems, refining their search

criteria and strategies in order to improve the relevancy and precision

of the search results. In addition, librarians are now required to

possess a knowledge of the contents, structure, organization, and

67
idiosyncracies of the various technical data bases. This demands a general knowledge of many subject fields. Furthermore, the librarian is

required to be proficient in the technical handling of computer searches

through the terminals. He/she must know the protocols of each system

and be familiar with the handling of communications through a terminal.

Because of the availability of terminals in libraries, patrons are coming in to libraries not only to access computerized data bases but

also to receive training through many CAI-type materials and to work

with technical types of computer packages, such as mathematics and

statistical routines. Thus, libraries are becoming "learning and

training centers" where users interact with computer systems. This is an expanded service and function which was not possible before.

These changes have also brought about some new problems such as the

requirement for special technical skills, changes in organizational

structure, and changes in staffing patterns. Another important problem,

about which everyone is concerned, is document delivery. Because of the

sophistication of computer systems which render faster and more com- prehensive bibliographic searches, there is an increasing demand for the

delivery of documents. As Professor Meyer mentioned this morning, we

are using twentieth century searching strategy but are still delivering

the papers by horse and buggy. It is understandable that a user gets

very irritated when given a long list of citations of relevant refer- ences but cannot obtain their texts within a short time frame, if at

all. It is with this problem that telecommunication technology can really help. Therefore, this is what I am going to talk briefly

about--the more recent developments in telecommunications that could

help libraries to solve this problem in the future.

Slow Scan Television . The previous speaker has discussed slow scan television (SSTV) techniques in great detail so I shall not dwell on it.

To put it briefly, SSTV transmits a video image through a narrow-band

channel, i.e., voice-grade telephone line. The trade-off is bandwidth

versus time. With SSTV, instead of receiving moving pictures every

one-thirtieth of a second, the user receives a still picture ranging

from 30 seconds to one minute depending on the resolution desired. With

SSTV the user can send and receive images of graphs, engineering drawings, writing on a blackboard, large charts, pictures, and text materials. This gives the user flexibility that the facsimile device does

not have because the operation of FAX is dependent on the size of the

original sheet to be transmitted.

The advantages of using SSTV in library operations are many. First

of all, it adds browsability to interlibrary operations. We can now browse documents through conventional telephone lines to determine,

either through the table of contents, or specific portions of the

document, whether the document is relevant. We can also pinpoint the

needed portion of the document, thus reducing significantly the reproduction and mailing cost. Second, with SSTV we can review and transmit

documents at a remote site. Although most of the SSTV manufacturers do

not have hard copy capability as such, that does not mean their equipment cannot be modified by attaching some other equipment to it to

68
obtain hard copies. Of course, there is no reason why a facsimile

machine cannot be used in conjunction with SSTV for hard copy transmission. This should be cost-effective, since it is possible to predetermine the exact portion of the document needed, which will minimize the

number of pages to be transmitted. Another good use of SSTV is for

conferencing. Since SSTV provides two-way visual communication, it can

be used very effectively between libraries, or headquarters and regional

offices, or among working, technical, and administrative people. With

this device, a new service dimension is added to two-way executive

conferences, technical work sessions, and briefing and presentation. In

addition to the travel expenses saved, the instantaneous quality of the

meetings should prove an invaluable asset.

As with other new technology, SSTV has problems. The most critical

is the resolution of SSTV using the regular TV display tube. Although

there is not much of a problem with the viewing of an ordinary picture,

it is grossly inadequate for full text delivery. Several studies done

in the past have shown that it requires a minimum of 1200 to an optimum

of 2000 scan lines to display a full page of text (with six point type)

legibly. Since an ordinary TV tube has only 525 lines, only about

one-fourth of a printed page can be displayed on SSTV for good readability. Another problem concerns hard copy production. As mentioned

before, there is no equipment at the present that offers hard copy production as part of an integrated system. Auxiliary attachments can be

used, but they usually need modification and are expensive. The transmission speed currently stands at about 30 seconds to one minute per

picture, which is still on the slow side. With a better compression

scheme, transmission speed should be reduced significantly. Although

most of the current commercial SSTV equipment handles only one picture

at a time, i.e., only one picture can be stored, it is not unreasonable

to add more memory to have the capability of storing more than one picture. It is also feasible to record the incoming image signals on some recording medium such as tape or disc and have the pictures played

back at a later time.

The potential for applying this technology to library use is great.

We do need careful study in this area and must evaluate how this can be

applied, to what types of material or information it is suited, and what

the required capabilities of hardware and software are. We must also

determine the costs and benefits of using this technology.

The project Dr. Meyer mentioned earlier is one which is conducted

under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation. The purpose

of the research is to determine how audio communications augmented with

SSTV visual images (charts, tables, blueprints, pictures, and so forth)

can enhance the effectiveness of person-to-person communications among

scientists and engineers. The experiment is being conducted at the

several Los Alamos laboratories. Dr. Joan Meier, NOAA, is currently

moving rapidly forward to organize a Federal library network, using SSTV

and facsimile devices as the major tools. We are watching this effort

with great expectation.

69
Telefacsimile . Facsimile transmission is a form of technology with

which we all have some familiarity. Currently, there are about 125,000

units in use in the United States. It was estimated that by the end of

1977 there would be about 200,000, and that figure should be doubled by

1980. Transmission of facsimile images is on the same principle as SSTV. Information bits of an image are squeezed through a narrow-band

channel such as the telephone network. Transmission time takes from

three to six minutes. With the application of compression and com- paction schemes designed to eliminate repetition and remove irrelevancies, transmission time has been reduced to about 30 seconds or less.

Rapifax Telefacsimile can transmit black and white images with no shades

of gray in 35 seconds. The 3M Company has introduced a high speed

facsimile transceiver which is capable of transmitting an average 300

word business letter in about 20 seconds. The 3M machine operates in a full duplex mode at 9600 baud and can send and receive material at the same time. This machine can also double as a standard electrofax office

copier and duplicates originals at a rate of six per minute, subject to

priority interrupt to receive incoming transmissions. Another commercial firm has announced the development of a machine which can transmit

a full page in 15 seconds; however, it is not yet commercially available. The facsimile machine, of course, is in wide use. As indicated

before, its principal drawback is that it is size dependent. However,

facsimile devices usually are not viewed as systems by themselves. When

used in combination with other communication devices such as telephone

or SSTV, they can serve a wide range of information needs.

Micro- Image Transmi ssion . Although many years ago microform was thought to be the solution to many library problems, as computers gained

in usage, the momentum for microform slowed considerably. Yet, there is a steady, perceptable, slow increase of microform users. In the latest

1977 survey of thousands of commercial firms, 33 percent of them now use microforms, compared with 28 percent a year ago. Because of improvements in computerized bibliographic searching, there is an increased

demand for full text delivery; time and cost involved in obtaining and

mailing of documents makes remote transmission of micro-image an appealing medium. It seems especially suitable for interlibrary loans as well

as document repositories such as NTIS, DDC, ERIC, and others. By having

this capability, they could transmit micro-images over telecommunication

links instead of packaging and mailing the hard copies. Unfortunately,

results of an informal survey indicate that, except in a limited number

of cases, most companies who perform research and development in microimage transmission stopped their efforts about five to seven years ago.

This was probably because, at that time, microforms were considered

primarily archival media. Thus, the need for transmission was con- sidered minimal. Recently, there has been a gradual change in attitude.

It is now realized that microforms need not be limited to archival

storage, but actually can be an integral part of a document delivery

system involving local reproduction and publishing.

Currently, there are several operational microform image transmission systems, but, to my knowledge, they are all cable connected for

70
local transmission. The Air Force has one, using closed-circuit television and a 1225-line CRT display. It is equipped with a zoom lens,

and can read eight point type. Most of you know that The New York Times

also has such a system. There is also one commercial firm which can transmit micro- images at a speed of 15 seconds per frame with 192 x 249

resolution. Long distance micro-image transmission systems exist only

as prototypes. A Naval Bureau of Personnel study has shown that the

optimum scanning resolution for its personnel records in six point type

is 160 lines per inch on full-size documents, or 151 lines per millimeter on 24X reduced-sized microforms. The recommended Navy system

consists of a laser-beam, spinning-mirror scanner that scans individual,

standard 98-frame microfiche at a rate of 2.4 seconds per image including loading, positioning, scanning, and ejecting the fiche. The rec- ommended output recorder is a laser-beam, spinning-mirror recorder, and

the output film is dry-processed, si 1 ver-hal ide film. The recommended

transmission link is a wide-band satellite link with an earth station

located near each remote site. While the system was a feasible one,

development and the initial costs were estimated to be in the millions

of dollars. Thus, that approach was abandoned, at least tentatively.

It stands to reason that the costs for developing a system for a single unique application are prohibitive. We are looking to management

and R&D people in industry to push for research and product development

for generalized applications. We know the Bell Telephone Company has

under development a system that can transmit a one page micro- image in

five to 10 seconds over broad-band links or in about one minute over telephone lines. The Bell system uses a laser recording on a metallic

coated film; the micro-image is rather permanent, compared to conventional microfilms. The Planning Research Corporation has developed its

Telefiche system, which allows three-second scanning of a single page of

information from a fiche, converts this to digital data, performs image

enhancement, and transmits to various forms of output such as paper hard

copy, video soft copy, back to fiche, or to computer-readable digital

data. It scans each page at a resolution rate of eight lines per millimeter, and produces a raster scan pattern of 1728 x 2200 raster points

or 3.8 X 10^ pixels per page. Transmission of one page over telephone

lines takes either 30 or 60 seconds, depending on the resolution. We

are hopeful that with this renewed interest, better and more efficient

devices soon will be on the market for library use.

Holography . Holography is known for its high information storage

capacity—about 250,000 bits per square centimeter. Compared to conventional magnetic storage devices such as tapes and discs, a significant

reduction in storage can be achieved through holographic techniques.

The Rome Air Development Center (USAF) has experimented with a holographic microfiche system since 1973 and has found the results to be

highly impressive and satisfactory. Up to 30 million bits can be re- corded on one microfiche. Data recording and readout are operated at

500,000 bpi which is comparable to high speed tape systems. Update of

information recorded on microfiche can be rapidly done by producing a new first-generation microfiche at a cost of about 35 cents. A mass

71
storage unit which can stack nine carousel units, each capable of holding 750 microfiche, provides a total storage capacity for 6750 microfiche or a maximum of 2 x 10^^ bits of information. The device can access and extract any microfiche within a maximum of 15 seconds.

A California company recently announced the availability of a holographic microfiche which converts electronic source data from computer

memory, tape, disc, and so forth, into an optical data page, or hologram. A 4 by 6 inch fiche contains 20,000 individual holograms; each

hologram contains up to 10,000 bits of data, giving a total capacity of

200 million bits per fiche. The writing speed of the recorder is stated

to be 30 holograms per second on the average. The manufacturer's estimate of cost to produce a master fiche is 50 cents and only five cents

per fiche to replicate. During recording, the electronic binary data

are converted directly to optical binary data, and formatted by an optical data, page-by-page composer. During retrieval a terminal keyboard directs a laser beam to intercept the appropriate hologram. The

optical sensing array captures the entire contents of the hologram,

converting the optical data to electronic binary form at an output rate

up to five megabits per second. The potential of this technology is

tremendous where extremely large data storage is required. Imagine, the

contents of the Los Angeles telephone directory can be stored in a single 4 by 6 inch fiche. In addition to the fiche, the manufacturer is

also developing roll films to record and retrieve the holograms.

Videodi sc . A videodisc looks much like a phonograph record. It is

played on a turntable that can be hooked up to a home television set

(color or black-and-white) through the two antenna terminals . Basically there are two types of videodiscs. The Discovision system, developed by MCA-Phi 1 1 ips , uses a 12 inch disc that rotates at 1800 rpm

(compared with 33-1/3 rpm for a long-playing phonograph record). It uses a small laser beam to pick up the recorded optical patterns on the

disc and displays the picture on a TV screen. Each disc has 54,000

tracks. Each track is less than two microns wide and records one full

frame of visual material in one revolution of the disc. The disc is

protected by a permanent plastic coating, and its performance is not

affected by scratches or surface conditions. The 54,000 pictures can be

shown as a motion picture for 30 minutes or can be displayed as single

still pictures; in the latter case, the laser beam simply keeps traveling over the same track. This technique also provides random access

capability. With a hand-held device the size of a small calculator, the user can key in the exact frame to be accessed. The system is primarily

designed for home entertainment, and each recorded disc of old movies or Broadway shows is suggested to retail for about 10 dollars. The player

costs about 500 dollars. It is rather obvious that there is tremendous

potential to use this device for training, for education, and for information storage and retrieval. With a 54,000-page storage, you can put

the entire Encycl opaedia Bri tannica on one disc with room to spare. The

format on the disc can be text, graphics, still frames, audio, or full

sound motion picture action. The display can be either black and white

or color, and content can be retrieved on demand by random access.

72
The rival system developed by RCA, instead of being optical, is

electromechanical. It uses a stylus traveling in a groove. It lacks

the random access, single-frame, and slow-motion capability of the MCA.

Therefore, it is not quite suitable for library information handling.

One problem with videodisc for text delivery is basically the same

as with SSTV, i.e., image resolution. Since a regular TV screen has

only 525 scan lines, only about one quarter of a printed page can be

displayed legibly. On the other hand, for small-size documents such as catalog cards or training and education materials, it still represents

an excellent choice. Another problem with videodisc is remote transmission. At this moment it is used only for local storage and display.

Transmission of images over long distance could be done through telephone lines, but at the rate of 30 seconds per frame some of the best

advantages of videodisc are lost.

There are three other areas which I originally intended to cover,

but due to the press of time I shall skip. They are two-way cable

television, glass fiber light guide (optic fibers), and satellite

transmission. Earl Henderson has already covered the use of satellites

for interactive communications and teleconferencing.

I would like to mention two additional points. First, a word of

caution. We must view all of the new technology as tools for our

optimal use. A tool is utilized only when it is cost-effective in its

application, not because it is novel or interesting. I would strongly

urge anyone who wishes to use any new technology, satellite included, to

conduct a thorough cost/benefit evaluation before plunging into it.

Such cost/benefit data are grossly lacking at the moment and need to be

developed. The other point I would like to mention is the time delay in

satellite transmission. It takes approximately 0.15 second to reach the

satellite and another 0.15 second to reach the receiving end. So there

is a 0.3 second time delay. In an interactive mode, incoming response

also takes 0.3 second to arrive; therefore, there is a total delay of

0.6 second. By contrast, maximum domestic terrestrial transmission

delay is 0.02 second. Of course, the cost of transmission via satellite

has the advantage of being independent of terrestrial distance.

In closing, I would like to say that the National Science Foundation has sponsored several studies on the forecasting of information

processing requirements and information technology. Conclusions reached

from these studies indicate that we have enough technology in existence

today to meet all the foreseeable needs for the generation, distribution, and storage of scientific and technical information until 1985.

The problem is not that we lack available technology, but rather that we are not applying it to its fullest potential. Therefore, one of the

objectives of the National Science Foundation's Division of Science

Information is to stimulate and encourage innovative application of

technology for information processing, storage, and transfer. We would

be happy to talk with each one of you who has an interest in this area,

and perhaps we can put forth a joint effort in undertaking these

projects.

73
Videodiscs —A Fast Retrieval, Mass Storage Medium for Libraries

by

Robert B. J. Warnar, Madeline M. Henderson, and Patricia W. Berger

More that one hundred years have elapsed since Thomas A. Edison

invented the phonograph recorder/playback system in 1877. The original

record was cylindrical in shape. Emile Berliner improved Edison's invention 11 years later by changing the form to a flat disc; he called it

a Gramophone. The disc was attractive despite the problem posed by the

continual linear change of groove speed due to the decreasing lengths of

consecutive spiral tracks. It offered a significant increase in playing

time and low production cost.

The Gramophone record constituted the second major breakthrough in

information storage and retrieval technology after the appearance of the

printing press. Vast quantities of information, first made reproducible

and portable by printing, could now be accessed audibly on records. The

next major breakthrough followed rapidly; in 1891, Thomas Edison invented motion pictures and expanded the collection and retrieval tools

of information technology to encompass written material, sound, and

moving images in a single information system.

In time, other methods using magnetic and electronic memory techniques were devised to store massive volumes of data. A new data handling machine called the electronic computer was introduced. Magnetic

tape and drum memories were used to supply the memory hierarchies of the

early computer systems. The drum was used for main memory and magnetic

tape served as mass or peripheral storage. An array of sensors was placed near the drum surface in order to cover as much information as possible in the drum.

As happened in the evolution of the phonograph record, the cylindrical drums have been replaced by magnetic disc memory. The reasons appear to be the same as before: disc storage systems generally have

greater storage capacity and lower costs than drum (cylindrical)

systems. However, there are striking differences between audio discs

and magnetic discs. Audio records are primarily in analog form; most

magnetic disc systems record in digital form. In addition, the design

of magnetic disc systems allows the pickup arms (or heads) to be placed

at any track on the platter within tens of milliseconds; thus, data can

be retrieved very quickly.

Mr. Warnar is on the staff of the Institute for Computer Sciences and

Technology, National Bureau of Standards. At the time of this Conference,

Ms. Henderson was Chief of the Computer Information Service, Institute

for Computer Sciences and Technology, National Bureau of Standards.

Ms. Berger is Chief of the Library and Information Services Division,

National Bureau of Standards.

74
Currently, magnetic disc systems composed of multiple stacked discs

store as much as 10 billion bits of data. This has made possible the

storage of hundreds of on-line data bases, which are currently used by

librarians for bibliographic searching and retrieval of the published

1 i terature.

Now a newer disc technology, called videodiscs or optical discs, is

emerging. Videodisc systems transmit all the information necessary for

the perception of written material, sound, and moving images. This

capability promises the evolution of better information recording/

retrieving systems than are available currently.

Videodisc Technology

Most videodiscs look like phonograph records. They are 12 inches

(30 centimeters) in diameter, are played on turntables, and produce

electronic signals much like long-playing (LP) audio records. Some

videodisc playback systems even use needle-in-the-groove pickups for

retrieving the recorded information. However, videodiscs contain

orders-of-magni tude more information than common audio records. Even

though both types of records are played on turntables for about one-half

hour a side, the videodisc system produces enough information to simultaneously operate several audio channels plus a video channel. Whereas

a good LP record covers the normal audio spectrum to over 15,000 vibrations per second (15 kilohertz), an advanced videodisc system covers almost one thousand times the LP's bandwidth. As a result, storage

capacity of one video disc is almost 10 billion bits of information.

About 100,000 television picture frames can be stored on one optical videodisc. A master optical videodisc has holes that are generated by a high-power, narrow-beam laser, located on the spiral tracks

of the disc. These holes are similar to the indentations in audiorecord grooves and contain the recorded information on the disc. There

are 54,000 spiral tracks per disc side, compared to about 1000 grooves

on an LP. The master reproduction disc is used as a mold in a highpressure injection molding machine. The mass production process for

videodiscs is quite similar to that used to generate multiple LP's from

a single master.

Not all videodiscs are vinyl records; a round piece of exposed film

works just as well. This type of optical videodisc is manufactured from

a photographic film that has been exposed to a high intensity light

source, such as a laser beam. The resulting "dots" on the spiral tracks

of the disc record information similar to that recorded on a solid disc.

Film media discs offer special advantages in situations where rapid

reproduction of discs is desirable. In addition, optical videodiscs

play up to one hour. The disc rotates at 1800 rpm on a turntable and

the 54,000 full-color pictures recorded on each side can be individually

addressed by remote control. In other words, this feature allows single

frame display capability, so that about 100,000 different frames are available on a single videodisc.

75
Several manufacturers are currently experimenting with multiple

videodisc packs for application as computer mass memories. One such

system employs an optical disc pack of six double sided discs with

information recorded on both sides; both sides of all six records are individually addressed by a laser-stylus read head. This videodisc

"jukebox" arrangement supports a storage capacity of 1 trillion bits,

and is the largest portable memory yet devised. However, further

improvements, such as even faster data access rates, are still possible

in the future.

Videodisc data transmission is compatible with commercial television. This, paired with long life and low cost (some manufacturers

claim 100 years of storage for less than 10 dollars per disc) plus fast

data retrieval, should make videodiscs highly attractive storage media

for libraries and archives. Because their recorded data is found inside

the record rather than on its surface, optical videodiscs are characterized by slow data decay rates. The laser pickup is focused iji the

data in the record, and the contact between pickup and disc is optical,

rather than mechanical. Dirt, scratches, fingerprints, and so forth,

cannot mar or erase the data. Consequently, the manner in which optical

discs are stored, operated, or handled has little or no effect on the

quality of the data recorded in them.

Impact on Library Operations

Videodiscs present attractive storage and retrieval capabilities

for libraries, because they offer a way to combine mixes of digital,

audio, and visual data into a single format. Thus, training and instructional materials, special educational materials and archival

storage of various data elements can be developed and stored by the

library for future use. Unlike microforms, videodiscs constitute a relatively stable, easily accessed storage media--one which is unaltered

by rough handling or radical shifts in temperatures and humidity. These

characteristics, plus their increased data storage capacity, make videodiscs superior media for maintaining back files of journals, archives of

technical reports, copies of laboratory notebooks, engineering drawings,

and so forth.

In addition, discs offer an opportunity for creating or maintaining

lectures and similar workshop and training session materials for library

and information science personnel. Tomorrow's library or information

center may well find itself a contributor to, as well as a participant

in, a regional continuing education program which uses videodiscs to

update, retrain, and broaden the skills and knowledge of professional,

paraprofessional , and clerical library personnel in area libraries.

Because of its fast random access and electronic addressing capabilities, the videodisc provides a degree of information dissemination

not readily available or achievable through the circulation of books,

journals and technical reports. As Becker and Hayes have observed,

"while circulation suggests a reader taking a book out of a library,

dissemination includes both this and active transmission of the contents

76
to a reader. Cataloging suggests the standard author, title and subject

guides. Indexing includes not only these, but greater depth of detail

as well through the ability... to process vast amounts of data according

to detailed and complex instructions."^

The implications for state-of-the-art and SDI library services are formidable--discs of newly received journal issues, discs of selected

new monographs and technical reports might be purchased (or generated)

monthly and duplicated as needed to furnish "active transmission" of

information packages to the library's users. Library staff hours

formerly used to log in, locate, store, and maintain paper copies of

books, reports, and periodical issues can be used to identify, assemble,

and disseminate selected information elements to library users.

Unlike microform technology, videodiscs and videotape depend on a technology already accepted and in use, namely, television. Both media

have a market far in excess of the library market; therefore, the TV

attachments they require will be in demand, will be mass produced, and

will be relatively cheap. These features add up to increased information storage and retrieval capabilities for the library of the future,

plus possible decreases in acquisitions and processing costs.

Impact on Library Users

The use of videodisc technology in the library will enhance some services already offered to library users, and introduce new services

not feasible now. For example, visual display of "converted" textual

material will be improved. Whereas the user now relies upon microform

storage and blowback of images, the videodisc system will store more

material in less space with better quality reproduction. Videodisc

storage and selection equipment, combined with high quality copying

capability, will permit the user to browse through a file of information, select items of interest, produce copies, and compile a tailormade file for subsequent use. Today's microform file does not have the

capability and quality of image that a comparable videodisc storage file

will have.

In addition, the availability of combined audio and visual displays

will enable the library to offer recorded lectures and demonstrations to

users. Such displays will be readily available because a TV screen will

be used for blowback--a movie projector is not required. Display

screens equipped with headphone attachments will not require a special

isolated projection area because they will be no more disturbing to

other library patrons than today's LP record-playing facilities.

The scope of such improved new services is not hard to imagine. In

a scientific and technical library, for example, lectures by distinguished colleagues in distant universities would be available in timely

fashion, for frequent use, by one or several users at a time, with

^Robert M. Hayes and Joseph Becker, Handbook of Data Processi ng for

Libraries (New York: Wiley-Becker-Hayes, 1971), p. 697.

77
quality of production that would rival the live performance. The

lecturer could insert textual materials, conduct demonstrations, and

repeat portions of the discussions as appropriate. The users could also

repeat portions as desired. Unlike closed-circuit TV use, videodisc

stored materials are available at the user's convenience, and with

better reproduction quality to enhance the impact of the message.

The overall or long-range impact on the user must include the

results of compact storage of materials and their compact display. The

potential cost and space savings of videodiscs and their storage can be

used to acquire additional materials or to offer additional services to

the library/information service user. This is of particular importance

when one considers the increasing volume of computerized interactive

bibliographic searches in scientific and technical fields; King notes a nearly 160 percent growth between 1971 and 1974 "and even more rapid

growth is anticipated in the future. Use of broad-based computerized

files generates additional requirements for document access; the

library/information center must provide access to an increasing number

of journals and books relevant to the user's interest. Acquisition and

storage of materials in videodisc form will make such increased access

possible.

The Direction of Videodisc Developments

As we have discussed, optical videodiscs furnish new information

capabilities for many data handling users. They furnish nonerasable,

high-capacity, low-cost data storage for information and data retrieval

purposes or for creating teaching and training aids. For example, one videodisc can contain pictures of all the parts necessary to build a modern XM-1 tank. Five videodiscs are sufficient to illustrate all the

parts necessary to assemble an entire F-14 fighter aircraft and in addition, over ten seconds of audio information can be made available to

explain each picture. Disc storage saves paper, space, and look-up

time, provides ease of handling, and facilitates training. The system

can include feature segment magnification; that is the magnification of

predetermined areas of the display can be presented in several steps of

the training session. In addition, "magnified information" can be

stored in consecutive tracks of the disc and these tracks can be

addressed by remote control. This feature would require significant

redundancy of stored data; however, the added training and instructional

capability would furnish the user a powerful tool.

Videodiscs store more data and cost less than magnetic discs. Unlike the magnetic disc, at present the videodisc is not erasable.

Therefore, it probably will not replace the magnetic disc, but it can displace magnetic tape and disc technologies in the rapidly expanding

mass memory market, where its major application may be the read-only

^D. W. King, et al . , Statistical Indicators of Scienti f ic and Technical

Communication , 1960-1980, Volume 1, A Summary Report for the National

Science Foundation (Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office,

1976) p. 60.

78
mass memory. Videodisc computer mass memories are not yet available,

but it is projected that a quadrillion bit memory consisting of 1000

optical discs will be available in the near future. For some applications, this disc capacity could replace 6 million reels of tape. Further developments and improvements in systems capacity, access speeds,

equipment volume, data rates, and low-power, energy-saving operation are highly likely.

While many librarians are very interested in the applications of

optical videodisc technology to library operations, at present videodiscs are not applicable because they employ regular television screens which have a capacity of 525 scan lines. The image resolution from such

a screen is poor because it limits display of text material to a quarter

of a page at a time. What is needed is a system with over 2000 scan

lines in order to display a full page per TV frame. However, since most

current systems are aimed at the home entertainment market, chances are that videodisc system design will concentrate on the systems using the

525 line screens. Therefore, it behooves librarians and their computer

specialist colleagues to become involved in the processes of videodisc

development and to push for systems useful and adequate for library

adaptation in order to assure a wide spectrum of future developments and

applications of videodisc technology.

79
NBa-l t4A IREV. 2-BCI U.S. DEPT. OF COMM. BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA

SHEET (See instructions)

1. PUBLICATION OR

REPORT NO. NRS (Sin

2. Performing Organ. Report No. 3. Publication Date

December 1981

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

Telecommunication Technologies, Networking and Libraries

Proceedings of a Conference, Held at the National Bureau of Standards,

Gaithersburg, MD, June 3, 1977

5. AUTHOR(S)

Nancy H. Knight

6. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION (If joint or other thon NBS. see /n stru ct/on s)

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20234

N.H. Knight

10608 Fiesta Road

Fairfax, VA 22032

7. Contract/Grant No,

8. Type of Report & Period Covered Final

9. SPONSORING ORGANIZATION NAME AND COMPLETE ADDRESS (Street. City. State. ZIP)

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, DC 20234

10. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 81-600069

[2J Document describes a computer program; SF-185, FIPS Software Summary, is attached.

11. ABSTRACT (A 200-word or less factual summary of most s/gn/7'cont information. If document includes a significant

bi bl iography or literature survey, mention it here)

The conference provided an overview of current and developing technologies for

digital transmission of image data that are likely to have an impact on the operations of libraries and information centers or provide support for information

networking. Technologies reviewed include slow-scan television, teleconferencing,

and videodisc. Other papers discuss technology and standards development for

computer network interconnection through hardware and software, particularly

packet-switched networks; computer network protocols for library and information

service applications; the structure of a national bibliographic telecommunications

network; and the major policy issues involved in the regulation or deregulation

of the common communications carriers industry.

12. KEY WORDS (Six to twelve entries; alphabetical order; capitalize only proper names; and separate key words by semicolons)

computer network interconnection; computer network protocol; digital transmission of

information; electronic message transmission; image transmission; information

networks; national bibliographic network; satellite communications; slow-scan

13. AVAILABILITY television; telecommunications policy; teleconferencing;

I— 1 , A videodiscs

LxJ Unlimited For Official Distribution. Do Not Release to NTIS

[x] Order From Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

20402.

Order From National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, VA. 22161

14. NO. OF

PRINTED PAGES

90

15. Price $4.75

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